ADAMINTE MAKAN ABU, the national award winning film for 2011, a Malayalam film is the Oscar nomination from India for the year 2011. As the story of the film is related to a man’s quest to do Haz, the holiest event in the life of an average Muslim, the director and producer of the film Salim Ahmed has made it with piousness. He has spent all the savings of his life to make this film.
No wonder, the kind of passion that Salim Ahmed has shown in making the film has been rewarded in the form of the film being nominated as the official entry from the country in the Best Foreign film category at the 84th edition of the Oscars to be unfurled in February 2011.
Though ADAMINTE MAKAN ABU has been nominated to the Oscars, Salim Ahmed does not have the required amount of resources at his disposal to market the film. For a film to be able to scale victory at the Oscars, it has to be shown to the jury members, and the whole exercise incurs money. Rs. 2 crore to be precise is required to promote the film among the 6000 jury members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of USA. Now that is the catch with Salim Ahmed, he does not have money and he is not getting the money as well, i.e. the he is not getting the support from the government to market the film, but he has not given up. He made his film by help from his friends and is now relying again on friends to bail him out.
Resul Pookutty has already chipped in with his might, and who knows he could bring in Rahman to support the project as it deals with a man’s quest to seek his god by going to Haj.
At the cost of not being parochial one could argue that now that the elections season is round the corner, and everybody is clamouring for Muslim votes, may be Salim Ahmed should also seek the help of political parties to help him in his cause. After all, the film indeed has a good chance to emerge victorious at the Oscars what it only needs is just a little push. May be, Aamir Khan could be the catalyst as Salim Ahmed has already met him. Who knows, but one thing is for sure, it is a film that has been made from heart by a man who did not have a film background, so it has all the potential to touch the chord of the audience around the world. After all quest to fulfill one’s religious obligations indeed touches the hearts in some form or the other.