Kerala filmmaker Don Palathara brings six-film retrospective and candid audience dialogues to Bengaluru
Kerala-based filmmaker Don Palathara is set to arrive in the city for a three-day retrospective of his work, organised by the Bangalore Film Forum in collaboration with Goethe-Institut/Max Müller Bhavan. Known for an independent approach that bypasses mainstream industry hierarchies, Don makes films in Malayalam that function as intimate, localised examinations of human nature. In 2023, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts selected him for the Breakthrough India programme and more recently, his film Family (2023) secured the 2025 Kerala Film Critics Association Award for Best Screenplay. Ahead of the retrospective starting May 15, which will feature screenings and in-person interactions in Indiranagar, we speak with the filmmaker to discuss the freedom of working outside the industry and the peculiar drama found in everyday life.
Bengaluru is hosting a retrospective of your work across three days. What has it been like to look back at these films together as a body of work?
The films were made one at a time and each time I was thinking only about that one. When you put them together and call it a body of work, it sounds more deliberate than it was. I suppose patterns become visible when other people start arranging your films in a row. I rarely go back and watch my films. When I look back, I mostly see mistakes. These films were chosen because they were the ones that felt important to make at that moment.
This retrospective brings together six of your films along with conversations and interactions. What can audiences expect from these three days in Bengaluru?
A willingness to watch six films is already a lot to ask of anyone. I would tell them: come to the ones you are curious about, leave if a film does not hold you and come back the next day for another. Each of these films was made at a different point in my life. The content and form vary between them because I look at them almost as if they were made by different people. The audience is not a static entity either. Their taste and opinions change with every new viewing. Some films communicate with us more, some less.
You‘ll also be interacting with audiences during the retrospective. What kinds of conversations are you hoping these screenings will open up?
I do not hope for any particular kind of conversation. If someone tells me my film bored them, that is also a conversation. If someone tells me they recognised their uncle in one of my characters, that is another kind. Both are real. I would rather hear what the film did to someone than explain what I intended.
You’ve built your career largely outside mainstream industry structures. Was that a conscious choice or a necessity?
It happened out of fear, I would say. The biggest fear I had was my hesitance to work within a hierarchy. I was and I still am, afraid of the lack of freedom I would have to face as a filmmaker within a mainstream structure. You can call it a choice, the way leaving a party early is a choice: partly because you want to, partly because nobody notices you are there. Working outside the industry gave me the freedom I am grateful for.
Independent film communities and film societies have played a big role in supporting alternative cinema in India. How do you see a city like Bengaluru contributing to that space today?
We are living in a society driven by capitalistic aspirations alone and to see a film society budding and thriving in a city like Bengaluru is not just a relief but a ray of hope.
What are you working on now and what kinds of stories are you interested in exploring next?
I am working on a few things, but it is better to talk about the details once they are in a better state. What I can say is that I am trying out things I have not tried before. It is exciting and scary at the same time.
INR 200 onwards. May 15 to May 17. At Indiranagar.
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(Anouska Kundu is an intern at Indulge)