Dominic Arun on helming a female superhero film: Not a deliberate attempt to break the mould

While Malayalam cinema has seen a superhero film with Minnal Murali, director Dominic Arun’s Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra, featuring Kalyani Priyadarshan, will mark the industry's first female superhero. However, the director says, “It’s not a deliberate attempt to break the mould.

We started discussing this idea back in 2020. The story and the main characters developed organically.

We are lucky to have built a talented team to bring this story to life."Premalu actor Naslen will be playing the male lead in this project, which has actress Santhy Balachandran as the additional screenwriter. She shares, "Dominic and I have had a longstanding association since Tharangam (2017), and working with him has always been a very collaborative experience. Lokah is his baby. We have different skill sets and points of view, and although we strongly disagree with each other at times, this difference is our strength as writing partners,"

While Kerala State Award Winner Melwy J, who has worked on Bramayugam and Minnal Murali, is handling the costume design for the film, the duo reveal that they have also collaborated with Archana Akhil Rao of Kalki 2898 Ad and Lucky Baskhar fame to create looks for certain sequences in the film, "including Kalyani’s outfit in the first-look poster”. Santhy believes that Malayalam is the most creatively fertile industry in India at this point in time. "Our audience is quick to both appreciate and criticise, so we cannot take them for granted. Of course, we have to work within the financial constraints unique to a small state, but I believe that too contributes to our unique choices in storytelling," she says.