No songs in Halitha Shameem's 'Minmini'

Filmmaker Halitha Shameem's upcoming Tamil-Malayalam bilingual "Minmini", a tale of friendship and sacrifice, won't feature any songs.

"The film has no songs, but we're planning to acquire the rights of a Hollywood track and use it. We want to credit the original composer. It will be a first-of-its-kind attempt in Tamil cinema. We've already initiated talks and are yet to hear from them," Halitha told IANS.

The film features child actors Gaurav Kalai, Pravin Kishore and Esther Anil in the lead.

This is the second time Halitha is working with Gaurav and Pravin, who had previously worked in her children's film "Poovarsam Peepee".

Asked if she likes working with kids, she said she loves the "young adult" genre.

"We've hardly had any films in the young adult genre. The stories that we see with actors in the age group of 25-35 are mostly recycled. I enjoy working with kids and the elderly, mostly because they're nice to talk to and socialize," she said.

"When you're working with kids, they're not bothered about what others think of them. When I was working as an assistant director on 'Nandalala', working with child actor Ashwath was much easier than working with anyone else on the sets," she said.

Halitha clarified that "Minmini" is not a children's film as it belongs to the young adult genre.

"This is a friendship-based film based on survivor's guilt. While the first half of the story focuses on the relationship of Gaurav, Pravin and Esther, the second half will be about their adult versions," she said, and added that she's in talks with a leading star to play one of the characters.

"Madras" fame Harikrishnan is also part of the lead cast.

While the Tamil version of the film is being produced by cinematographer Manoj Paramahamsa, the Malayalam version, which is titled "Fireflies", is produced by Abhinandan Ramanujam, another popular cinematographer in Malayalam filmdom.

Mala Manyan is also one of the producers of the project.

The team will leave to Ladakh for the next schedule in May or June.