Malayalam filmdom: Young talent triumphed over superstars (2015 in Retrospect)

The Malayalam film industry in 2015 saw the youth brigade - be it onscreen or behind it - taking the lead over ageing superstars and veteran directors.

The trend has continued from last year.

Even though the ageing superstars like Mammootty (64) and Mohanlal (55), had five releases each, they didn't shake the box office as it used to happen in the past.

A failure for the superstars was a rarity in yesteryears, but the situation seems to have changed now.

If one looks into the success that the youth brigade scaled in a year where 140 Malayalam films were released, it's pleasantly surprising. The biggest grossers feature actors like Prithviraj, Nivin Pauly and to a certain extent Dileep, whose five releases did reasonably well.

While "Ennu Ninte Moideen", starring Prithviraj and directed by debutant R.S. Vimal, walked away with the top honours for the biggest blockbuster, Pauly's "Premam" came a close second.

Prithviraj had eight films to his credit and Pauly had four.

Even though Mammootty could introspect on his films, he can be happy with another excellent year for his son, Dulquar Salman, who had three films that scored well at the box office.

One among the youth brigade, Fahad Fazil, with three films, could not recreate his previous year's success and is expecting that the New Year would bring happier times for him.

As for the women in the industry, Manju Warrier had three films, while the year saw many new generation actresses and old ones like Swetha Menon, Meera Jasmine, Mamta Mohandas, Parvathy Menon, Jewel Mary, Honey Rose, Miya George, Rima Kallingal, Andrea Jeremiah and Swati Reddy donning the greasepaint.

Among the directors too, the big names like Sathyan Anthicadu, Kamal, Renjith, Siddique, Lal Jose and Joshi, to name a few, didn't have a happy year, as the top honours were mostly taken away by relatively new faces or debutants.

Overall, it appears there was not much to cheer for the Malayalam film industry and it drew a blank at the National Film Awards too, as it could not win any of the major awards.

(This is a part of a series of articles from IANS that look back at the year that was for a variety of subjects, running up to the New Year. Sanu George can be contacted at sanu.g@ians.in)