Wayanad man-eater tiger attack victim played role of alarmed farmer in a short film

Wayanad: While the hunt for the man-eater tiger is on in the coffee plantations of Moodakolly-Koodallur villages near Sulthan Bathery, a group of youngsters are busy with post-production of a short film on man-animal conflict. In the film, Marottiparambil Prajeesh, a dairy farmer who was killed and partially eaten by the tiger, also played a key role.

In one of the scenes, Prajeesh is found driving his jeep full of grass for the cattle and warning the people in the town about the roaming tiger, crying out, “Something should be done, a tiger is around”.

Prajeesh's dialogue in the film and also his conversation with a friend on the tiger that roams around the farm where he used to collect grass for cattle and his imminent death by the tiger have been doing rounds in the agrarian belt since his death.

The scenes were shot two months back in October and the youth was killed while the post-shooting works were in full swing and the release date of the 40 minutes long film was fixed as on January 1.

According to Jeneesh Changanaparambil, who played the lead role in the film, Prajeesh donned the role of a local farmer who is afraid of the roaming tigers and the attempts by a local chieftain to kill the animal.

It was a location hunt by young director and videographer Joshua Ronald and their team for his next film, that led him to the farmhouse of Jeneesh in the village. During discussions, the focus turned to the repeated cattle lifting by tigers and leopards. Finally, the team decided to make a film on human-animal conflict. The theme of the film revolves around the tiger scare in the village and the arrival of hunting experts to save the village from the wandering tigers. 

Apart from Prajeesh many, few other villagers also acted as agrarian characters in the film. The character of Prajeesh appears in the film for more than 10 minutes.