Zakariya Mohammed’s latest written and directed feature ‘Halal Love Story’ started streaming today on Amazon Prime Video. Days before the launch, the writer-director gave a few interviews with regards to the film and his inspiration behind the same. Here are a few of the things we found out.
Zakariya Mohammad was part of a NSS based film society, back during his college days. He always had a desire to be a filmmaker when he was young, but while being part of the film society, he got more involved with films. After viewing multiple international & domestic films and also meeting multiple filmmakers in his college, he realized filmmaking was his true calling and stuck with it.
This film is not a period film, but it is set in a particular period when “nudity” and “raciness” were making waves in contemporary films in Kerala, which started in the 80s. So this film talks about the confusion faced by the film society and the audiences who were perplexed by the sudden shift in focus by the filmmakers at the time. This film is set during that time period around a conservative film community in a rural environment.
Zakariya also uses his experience working on film sets to provide his take on the issues that filmmakers can face while making a film. Everything ranging from budgetary cuts and overenthusiastic individuals on set to actors putting up demands and refusing to work, helped in shaping his script for ‘Halal Love Story’.
The film follows an enthusiastic actor Shereef, a film producer and an honest script writer who are trying to create a film which doesn’t hurt the sensibilities of their film watching community, in other words, a “Halal film”. Due to budgetary constraints, they decided to make the feature a tele-film which is only an hour long and will need 10 days for a shoot, at best. Problems arise when they get an aspiring director to direct the film, who only cares about the art he wants to create and not the constraints he has been shacked with.
As mentioned earlier, ‘Halal Love Story’ is streaming currently online on Amazon Prime Video.
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