‘Jallikattu’ screenwriter elated as film becomes India’s official entry to Oscars

Kottayam: Screenwriter S Hareesh of Malayalam film ‘Jallikattu,’ which has been selected as India’s official entry into Oscars 2021, expressed his happiness over the development and dedicated the honour to the director of the film Lijo Jose Pellissery.

“Very happy to hear the news. The whole credit goes to Director Lijo Jose Pellissery. Congratulations to the whole Jallikutti team,” Hareesh told ANI.

“Especially producer O Thomas Panicker, actor Chemban Vinod Jose, my co-writer R Jayakumar, actor Antony Varghese, cinematographer Girish Gangadharan, editor Deepu Joseph, and the whole team,” he added.

Hareesh along with R Jayakumar had adapted the screenplay of the film from one of his short stories ‘Maoist’.

The movie revolves around a bull that escapes from a slaughterhouse in a remote village leading to the entire village gathering and hunting the animal together.

The film that has Antony Varghese, Chemban Vinod Jose, Sabumon Abdusamad and Santhy Balachandran in key roles had also won two awards, best director and best sound mixing, at the 50th Kerala State Film Awards earlier this year.

‘Jallikattu,’ will be taking part in Oscar’s race for the ‘Best International Feature Film,’ category.
Earlier last year, Zoya Akhtar directorial ‘Gully Boy,’ had been selected as India’s official entry into the prestigious award ceremony.

The 93rd Oscar Award ceremony was postponed to April 25, 2021, earlier this year due to the growing coronavirus pandemic concerns.

This is the first time in the last 40 years that the award ceremony was rescheduled. It was earlier scheduled to be held on February 28, 2021.