It proves that you don’t need a massive budget to tell a massive story. You just need a story that is true to its roots. As audiences across the world—unfamiliar with the language—line up to watch these films with subtitles, they are realizing what Malayalis have known all along: Culture is the universal language of cinema.
The COVID-19 pandemic was an inflection point. When theaters closed, Malayalam cinema was the first Indian industry to pivot aggressively to OTT (streaming) platforms. It proves that you don’t need a massive