Basil Joseph, Vineeth Sreenivasan, Darshana Rajendran, Roshan Mathew and Shane Nigam
The rising stars of Malayalam cinema. (Supplied)
Malayalam cinema always gave us great content. But in recent times, it saw a spate of new young stars making their mark in acting, writing and direction. Here are five people the audience should keenly follow:
The year 2022 saw South cinema shining like never before. The pandemic seems to have wreaked havoc on Bollywood. But thanks to OTT, Indians discovered the diverse regional content that had been waiting to be explored in the Hindi-speaking belt.
Malayalam cinema, in particular, gave us content that made us realise that filmmakers are adapting faster to changing times and exploring new stories that the audience is craving.
There are a few standout actors and filmmakers who are the rising stars of Malayalam cinema and are the ones the audience should keenly follow.
Two recent releases in Malayalam cinema – Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey and Mukundan Unni Associates – turned out to be superhits. The audiences in non-Malayalam speaking regions are enjoying them as much as the local audience.
Interestingly, the heroes of these films — Basil Joseph and Vineeth Sreenivasan respectively — are both actors, writers and directors themselves.
Basil Joseph wrote and directed Minnal Murali (2021), a superhit film on Netflix. Vineeth’s Hridayam was a blockbuster this year.
The young men wrote and directed successful Malayalam films earlier, but it is only now that the world discovered their talent.
Darshana Rajendran is another actor who is seen in Malayalam and Tamil cinema, and ventured into Hindi in 2022 with the web series, Unpaused: Naya Safar.
An extremely talented actor, she is also a singer and chooses only roles that she feels are challenging and have a connection.
With a theatre background, she made her mark on the big screen and is a talent that is set to go places.
Meanwhile, 30-year-old Roshan Mathew seems to be making waves not just in Malayalam but in Hindi as well. His 2022 film with Alia Bhatt, Darlings, had the Hindi audience talking about him excitedly.
Roshan had three releases each in 2020 and 2021, but in 2022, the Cobra actor already had six releases.
With a theatre background, Roshan lived in Chennai and Mumbai, and the varied theatre experience gave him the ability to adapt to any role easily.
He is known for his controversies but one cannot deny that Shane Nigam is a talented actor.
He had a string of hits in Malayalam cinema till his run-in with the producers’ association. But with all that behind him, the coming years will see him shine again.
His 2022 release Bhoothakaalam was a superb film and with an impressive line-up, the Kumbalangi Nights actor is someone to watch out for.
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