Unni - Another Story of an Indian Child

Directed by: Murali Nair

India / 2006 / 90 mins / 35 mm / Malayalam with English Subtitles

NY Premiere, suitable for children, Director in Attendance

Set against the lush backdrop of Kerala, Murali Nair charts the bittersweet coming-of-age journey of four mischievous young friends from different social classes, in this first installment of the trilogy Life is All about Friends. Nair sensitively sketches out the starkly different social milieu of each of the children - from Unni's rigid upper-caste all-woman household, to his friend Gopi's broken home and alcoholic father. Led by troublemaker Gopi, Unni gets up to all kinds of mischief at school, along with Ramu and Raju, and the boys briefly fall out. But in spite of all their differences, the curiosities of adolescence holds these four friends together in the face of society's arbitrary rules. Nair went back to his childhood School to recruit the young non-professional actors for the film.