BGMI – Live the Battlegrounds
Your work is often described as sitting somewhere between craft and chaos – highly designed, but still alive and unpredictable. Does that feel like an accurate description of how you make films?
Maybe! I always like to keep certain aspects open to interpretation in my films. While being highly designed, I am also trying to trigger some of the human emotions (which is why maybe chaos is part of that 🙂 ) so that it leaves the audience with something (love or hate, but nothing in between! )
Can you tell us a little about where you grew up? Was yours a creative household, or did filmmaking arrive from somewhere else entirely?
I grew up in Kerala, in the southside of India, in a household that wasn’t particularly creative. Yet the culture, stories, and traditions around me helped shape my perspectives.
Filmmaking came into my life gradually. While I was busy churning out work at an agency, it was my then friend — now my life partner, AK — who encouraged me to make films of my own, telling me I was better than the shit happening around me. After exploring different paths and beginning to understand my own interests, I fell in love with filmmaking. Along the way, as I dabbled across different mediums and formats, I discovered that storytelling was the form that felt most natural to me.
Before directing, you worked in motion design and created the title sequence for the Malayalam film Aavesham. How did that background shape the way you think about image-making, rhythm and visual storytelling?
Aavesham was pretty fun to work with my bunch of insanely talented artists. It gave me the leeway to go into absurd imaginations of the protagonist stimulated by action sequences which got me more comfortable into the idea of absurdism and the love for mixed media. Big ups to the director of Aavesham, Jithu Madhavan, for letting me and my team to go crazy on that.
BGMI – Live the Battlegrounds
You are also a trained percussionist. Does music, particularly rhythm, influence the way you build tension, edit, or choreograph action in your films?
Oh absolutely! Music and sound is an integral part of how I think films. Sometimes I might have a starting point for an idea from a sound, or a particular section of the track which draws me to deep dive more into the subject then. Sometimes, it could be a feeling you get out of a certain track which could be one of the deciding factors in the language of the film.
BGMI – Live the Battlegrounds was your first commercial as a director, and it went on to win Silver at the 1.4 Awards. What did that project unlock for you?
Live the Battlegrounds film was a make or break for me. I was certain if I am not able to pull this off, I would shut up and sit. If I had to do my first, I wanted to see how far I could push a craft I love and not settle for anything else because we are already surrounded with a lot of interesting work around and it only made sense to see if I can try to find my voice through it.
The film has this wonderful uncertainty at its centre – are we watching the game enter real life, or the player being pulled into the game? Was that ambiguity there from the start?
Yes, I wanted to bring in the feeling of a person who deep dives into the game lost in the world that he is surrounded with. And the moments of intimidation by the waiter made it more dramatic to escape to the game world.
Gaming films can often feel either too literal or too synthetic, but Live the Battlegrounds has a raw, physical energy. How did you approach making the BGMI universe feel tactile and emotionally real?
I think that’s how I would like to approach all my films. I also wanted to break the plasticity of game commercials and bring in imperfections which makes it more real and feels a certain way for the relevant audiences. Also the choice of everyday instances we see around was key in the design.
BFMI – Royal Enfield
There are also cultural nuances woven into the film. How important was it to make the BGMI world feel specifically rooted in its Indian audience rather than simply borrowing from global gaming aesthetics?
The game is being played by all kinds of audiences, and I felt it was important from a relatability point of view. Also, I want to dive into the player’s mindset and exaggerate the fact that you find the game around you wherever you go and whatever you do.
Your films often bend reality through VFX, live action and mixed media. What draws you to surreal or alternate worlds rather than straight realism?
I think I am exploring my way of telling stories. I am inclined towards bringing interpretations through surrealism in relatable scenarios rather than a straight-up realism-based narrative. Maybe that might change over the years to come, still trying to find that self in me.
You’ve mentioned absurd humour, art house cinema and photography as influences. Are there particular filmmakers, photographers or artists who helped form your visual language?
Hard to pick one, but I have always loved the works of Tarkovsky, Pek Chan Wook and Darren Arnofsky among a lot of others. What drew me into commercial art was the likes of Jonathan Glazer and Frank Budgen.
You’re currently working on Part Time Gods, a docu-fiction based on Theyyam, where lower-caste performers transform into gods. What first drew you to that art form?
Theyyam has been portrayed as an exotic art form in commercial art and music videos etc. and there is a social commentary of the art form which gets seldom lost in it. I was keen on that and to express that in my own style of storytelling. And when I shared this idea with Charu Menon, MD of Heckler Amsterdam during our meeting at YDA Cannes 2025, she was supremely excited to make it happen and in the best possible way.
Survival of the Fastest – Coin Rush
Commercials, music videos, experimental work and now docu-fiction all seem to sit within your practice. Do you see clear boundaries between those forms, or are they all part of the same world for you?
When I think of it, these are all part of the same world for me, while I draw certain boundaries with commercials. I am really looking forward to a time where I can push the ART in commercial art and bring the craft of short form in all it’s glory!
What kind of stories or cinematic worlds are you most interested in exploring next?
I have been working with my collaborators on short-film scripts based on certain findings in psychology. And I have always been trying to keep pushing short forms with the collaborators with some concepts which are hard to chew, be it music videos or commercials. Let’s see how it goes!
