Payal Kapadia, renowned for her Cannes Grand Prix-winning All We Imagine as Light, has teamed up with power couple Richa Chadha and Ali Fazal to produce the upcoming Malayalam film Guptam (also known as The Last of Them Plagues).
Jeo Baby, the director of Kaathal – The Core, and All We Imagine as Light actress Kani Kusruti have also joined the project as co-producers.
Written and directed by Kunjila Mascillamani, Guptam will be presented to investors at the CinéV Film Markets in Chandigarh from March 20 to 23.
In a statement issued to the media, Payal Kapadia shared that she was certain about producing Guptam after reading the first treatment of the film.
“When I first saw Kunjila’s Asanghadithar, I was struck by her impeccable craft and strong voice. I knew I wanted to be part of her filmmaking journey. As a woman, I have long struggled with the lack of diverse female representation on screen. Reading the first treatment for Guptam, I was certain this was a film I had to produce. A single mother battling a society that sees her as an anomaly is the reality of countless women around us. I grew up seeing women like Sethulekshmi of Guptam,” she said as quoted by Indian Express.
Richa Chadha and Ali Fazal also expressed their excitement about producing Kunjila Mascillamani’s project.
The couple said, “As producers, we deeply resonate with Kunjila’s script, which exposes the insidious violence against women veiled as ‘culture’. In Guptam, a woman’s decision to simply exist on her own terms unsettles many in her homeland, a theme that transcends borders. We have long admired Kunjila’s work for its originality, and we are excited to embark on this journey with her, knowing she will bring depth, nuance, and vulnerability to this deeply personal story.”
The logline of Guptam reads, “When her younger daughter disappears in a graveyard, a single mother is forced to move to a conservative, religious, small town in Keralam, India, where she launches a desperate search for the child. Soon, a series of mysterious and disastrous incidents plague the region, and the townsfolk turn against her, convinced she has brought god’s wrath upon them. Now, she must fight to clear her name while coping with grief and struggling to care for her surviving daughter.”
