Christo Tomy’s Ullozhukku revolves around the death of a young lady’s husband and her relationship with her mother-in-law, who grows increasingly suspicious of her. Shot extensively in Kuttanad, a land of backwaters in Kerala, the emotional drama stars Urvashi and Parvathy Thiruvothu. In an interview with Film Companion South, the powerhouse actresses opened up about how the house they filmed in was filled with negative energy in the initial days of the shooting, and how they coped to get into the flesh of the characters.
“One week after the shooting began, the movie began to take a toll on my mental state,” says Urvashi. “There was of course a lot of physical constraints involved in the process but something was wrong besides that. I conveyed this to the director, and he told me this house had been locked up for a long time. We also heard of the many unlucky events that happened there at the time of floods.” So they went to the extent of calling a priest to bless the house.
The team completed filming within a schedule of 43 days, bearing with the extreme weather conditions of Kuttanad. “There hasn’t been a film that has posed so many physical challenges for me recently. My costume was mostly cotton sarees and it used to get wet after all the takes. After a break, I’d have to make it dry and come back, but it would still remain sticky. While this went on for 10-15 days, then came the after-effects of it and I could feel it all over my body. But the fact is that we had to go through such pain to make a good film,” the actress adds.
