Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Santhosh Sivan are all set to do Kerala proud at the 32nd Toronto International Festival, scheduled to take place from September 6th to September 15th. While Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s latest venture Naalu Pennungal is being premiered in the Masters Section, Santhosh Sivan’s Hollywood film Before the Rains will be screened as part of two gala presentations and six special presentations.

      While Naalu Pennungal is based on four short stories by Noted Malayalam writer Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai and zooms in on the life of four women coming from four different strata of the society, Before the Rains is a period film set in the 1930’s with Munnaar in Kerala as the backdrop. Naalu Pennungal has in the cast Nandita Das, Padmapriya, Manju Pillai, Kavya Madhavan, Jagadheesh, Jagathy, Manoj K Jayan, Mukesh, Vijayaragahvan, Asokan etc and is produced by Doordarshan.

      The film tells the story of four women - a sex worker, a peasant, a middle class housewife and a woman from a rich family. Before the Rains, produced jointly by the U.S-based Echo Lake Productions, Adirondack Pictures and Santhosh Sivan, tells the story of a British planter and his efforts to tap the resources of the high ranges of Kerala and also delves into the realm or relationships in sensitive manner. The cast includes Linus Roache, Rahul Bose, Nandita Das, Jennifer Ehle, Thilakan, Lal, Indrajith, John Standing etc.