In 2022, there was no food, fuel or electricity in Sri Lanka. Poor, hungry and destitute, the people became desperate. The economic crisis tipped into political instability and there were widespread protests. Once again Sri Lanka burned, but this time, with a fire from within. It is in this backdrop that Sri Lankan filmmaker Prasanna Vithanage set his film Paradise. After all, paradise is what the main characters―Kesav (Roshan Mathew) and Amrita (Darshana Rajendran)―were after when they travelled to Sri Lanka, unaware of the tensions simmering there. They did not know that when they planned to celebrate five years of marriage in a burning country, they risked their love going up in flames.
It was a five-hour chat with Vithanage that convinced actor Mathew to take up the film. “There is a certain sense of simplicity and minimalism in his filmmaking, which I admire,” says Mathew. “I saw that in his films With You, Without You, Gaadi and Paradise. It was an illuminating experience to work with him.”
Although Mathew was initially hesitant to do Paradise because his film Choked had followed a similar relationship trajectory, he got enthused after meeting and speaking with the filmmaker. Vithanage wanted the actors to go to Sri Lanka without any preconceived notions to experience the situation firsthand. In the film, the couple visits the country for its beauty and affordability.
Paradise―presented by filmmaker Mani Ratnam's Madras Talkies and produced by Newton Cinema―won the Kim Jiseok award at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea and the Prix du Jury Lyceen at the Vesoul International Film Festival in France. It released in India on June 28 to much acclaim.
Referring to independent and non-commercial films like Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine As Light (which won big at Cannes this year) and Paradise attracting audiences on OTT instead of theatres, Mathew says, “There is a certain responsibility to ensure that the diversity in cinema remains, and for that we must go to watch these films.”
Mathew has worked in Malayalam, Hindi and Tamil films. His international project Poacher was produced by Alia Bhatt. He says that while Tamil and Telugu films are becoming pan-India hits, he is happy that Malayalam actors and films, too, are getting attention, especially after the pandemic. The actor is keen on trying different genres, especially those he has never explored before, like his upcoming film, Ulajh, a spy thriller co-starring Janhvi Kapoor. “I take up a project if the character excites me or if the people in it do, or if it is multilingual,” he says. “It is high time we embrace all languages in cinema.”
Poacher was his second collaboration with Alia Bhatt, after the comedy-thriller Darlings (2022), which starred her along with Mathew, Shefali Shah and Vijay Varma. “Who would not want to work with Alia?” he asks. “She is at the top of her game, doing some incredible work, and evolving as an artiste so beautifully. I was lucky to be able to work with her. Even now, if there is a discussion about a project with Alia, I get excited.”
Mathew says he is agnostic of the medium he works in, whether it is OTT or the big screen. As an actor, all that matters to him is that he does his work well.