Thiruvananthapuram: At a time when cinema is increasingly consumed through seamless digital systems and invisible technology, Malavika VN's Viraamam (At Reel's End) pauses to look at the people who once made the magic possible from behind the screen. Screened in the competition section for short documentaries at the ongoing 18th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Keralam (IDSFFK), the 16-minute film turns its attention to film projectionists in Kerala — a profession shaped by devotion, technical skill and, in many cases, quiet disappearance.
The documentary opens with a line that captures both the dignity and the melancholy of the profession. "Film projectionists are like candles. People rejoice watching movies that we screen, while we slowly melt," says Vincent Joseph, a projectionist at Radha Theatre in Kozhikode. The quote serves as more than a poetic observation; it becomes the emotional core of the film, framing projectionists as workers whose labour was essential yet often unseen, whose craft illuminated the experience of cinema even as their own relevance diminished with changing technology.
Viraamam follows projectionists in the State who adapted to the transition from 35mm film to digital systems, as well as those who eventually left the field because of circumstance and change. In one moment, the film recalls the joy of watching world cinema from the projection room; in another, a former projectionist is seen becoming emotional while holding the carbon rods of the 35mm projector he once operated. These details give the documentary its texture, grounding it in tactile memory and the physicality of a profession now largely displaced by automation.
For Malavika, the film is also a personal recovery of unfinished work. Viraamam began life as her final-year project in visual communications at St Joseph's College, Bengaluru, nearly 10 years ago. At the time, she was still a student handling every aspect of production herself. "We students had to handle every department – production, direction, editing etc. I was not happy with the final product and wanted to bring it out as a proper work," she says. It was only after she began working professionally as an editor that she felt equipped to revisit the material with a clearer eye and a stronger sense of narrative.
That return to the project was not merely technical. Malavika says she and her husband, filmmaker Goutham Soorya, reworked the visuals from scratch and re-edited the film into "a totally new work." The process, she says, reflected how much had changed since the original shoot. "A lot has changed since I made this project. Even I have a different perspective about the whole process," she notes. The film's second life, then, mirrors the very subject it documents: a world transformed by time, technology and changing ways of seeing.
Her interest in projectionists began after one of her teachers, Johnson Rajkumar, introduced her to film preservation and restoration. That exposure led her to think about the human cost of technological progress. "I wanted to explore how the technological advances impacted their lives and that's how I happened to do the project," she says. The result is a documentary that is less about nostalgia alone than about the emotional and cultural consequences of cinema's evolution.
Malavika remembers meeting the projectionists in 2016-17 as a deeply warm experience. "It was the first time that someone had come forward to know more about what they did and they were overwhelmed," she says. What stayed with her most was the pride and affection they carried for their work. "What struck me most was the love and passion they all had for the job. That emotion has stayed with me and I wanted the audience also to feel the same through the documentary," she says.
That intention gives Viraamam its quiet force. The film does not simply mourn a disappearing profession; it asks viewers to recognise the labour behind the spectacle and the people who sustained cinema long before projection became invisible. Malavika says she wanted to bring home "an element of nostalgia and a sense of loss," while also inspiring viewers to love what they do. In that balance between remembrance and forward motion, Viraamam finds its place at IDSFFK as both a tribute and a warning: that when cinema changes, it is not only formats that vanish, but entire worlds of work, memory and identity.