The audio cassette of Vineeth Sreenivasan's latest, Hridayam, was released at its audio launch held in Kochi. It’s an act of nostalgia seeing a return after a long gap. Split into Side A and Side B, the album, composed by Hesham Abdul Wahab, has 15 songs in total.
The cassettes and album were launched by Mohanlal, who accepted them from Vineeth and producer Visakh Subramaniam.
Hridayam marks the collaboration of the children of the iconic Mohanlal-Sreenivasan-Priyadarshan combo. Vineeth returns to the director's chair with the film that sees Pranav Mohanlal, Kalyani Priyadarshan and Darshana Rajendran essaying the main characters.
Mohanlal shared his memories of the music and audio launch of films he made years ago under the banner of Pranav Arts, particularly His Highness Abdullah. "His Highness Abdullah was made when the Malayalam film music industry was going through a crisis in the nineties. It was a film with a strong emphasis on music. It was also the highest-grossing cassette sold at the time," said the actor.
"Later on, films like Bharatham and Kamaladalam gave an equally strong emphasis on music too. Then Malayalam cinema took another direction in terms of music. It makes me glad to know that Hridayam is bringing it back with a whole new dimension," he added.
"This movie is so special to me. Everyone behind this film is close to my heart. It’s not just my son but my friends' children who have acted in it as well as directed and produced it. I pray that Hridayam becomes a great success," he said.
Adding to the superstar's words, Vineeth said that Hridayam isn't entirely a "musical love story" but rather "love being only a part of it".
Speaking about Pranav's character in the film, Vineeth says, "He plays a young man named Arun Neelakanthan, and the film tracks his journey right from when he was 17 to 30 years old. We have tried to convey the various highs and lows in his life, his friendships, love, emotional ups and downs, career-related uncertainties, up to the time he is about to be a family man."
Producer Visakh Subramaniam, who is also the head honcho of Merryland Cinemas and bankrolling the film under the banner, confirmed that there is no change in the release date and that Hridayam will indeed be out this Friday. It is intended as a gesture to support theatre owners and staff rather than a profit-making endeavour.
Hridayam also features Aju Varghese, Arun Kurian and Vijayaraghavan, among others. Vishwajit Odukkathil cranked the camera, with Ranjan Abraham editing. Hridayam also marks the 70th film in the 70th year of Merryland Cinemas. Notably, Hridayam is also coming out under the Merryland Cinemas banner after 40 years. Visakh forayed into film production with the Nivin Pauly-starrer Love Action Drama.