32-YO From Kerala Takes Malayalam Short Film Made for College Project All the Way to the Student Oscars

When Sidharth Harikumar left Kerala for Berlin to study cinematography at MetFilm School, he didn’t expect his final project to travel so far. His Malayalam short film, Vasu, has now been recognised as a finalist at the 2025 Student Academy Awards, often called the Student Oscars.

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Out of 3,127 entries from student filmmakers around the world, only 28 short films made the cut. Vasu, a 16-minute Malayalam drama set in rural Kerala, is among them — competing in the Narrative category at one of the world’s most prestigious platforms for emerging filmmakers.

“It was truly surreal,” Sidharth recalls. “You don’t expect an email from the Academy to land in your inbox at midnight. When it did, it took a moment to process.”

The calm that hides a storm

Set in a peaceful Kerala village, Vasu follows a retired police constable living in self-imposed isolation, haunted by a crime he once committed under his superior’s orders — a moment of obedience that now leaves him battling guilt. He spends his days in near silence, caught between remorse and routine, until confession becomes his only path forward.

The calm surface of the film conceals an emotional storm — a metaphor that Sidharth deliberately built into the story. “The stillness of the surroundings only amplifies the disquiet within Vasu,” he says. “I wanted to explore the emotional aftermath of morally conflicting duties, especially those carried out under hierarchical pressure.”

Shot in Sidharth’s native Trivandrum, the film also reflects his time in Berlin, where he often thought about how Germany memorialises the Holocaust. “Being in Germany, you cannot escape the weight of the Holocaust. In Berlin, grief is remembered through silence, not spectacle,” he explains. That understanding became the emotional spine of Vasu, where silence acts both as punishment and as a way to survive.

A film rooted in empathy and awareness

As he developed the story, Sidharth found unexpected links between India’s unspoken grief and the collective memory he observed in Germany. “In India, we are not conditioned to talk about mental health. Most of the time, people don’t even realise that what they are carrying is trauma,” he says.

Through Vasu, Sidharth chose to examine that silence from the edges — through a man unaware that he is suffering from PTSD, who punishes himself instead of seeking help.

“He’s made himself the judge, jury, and executioner,” explains associate director Mahesh Krishna. “He’s not aware that he has a mental health problem — he has just accepted the fact that this is the way he is.”

Mahesh points to films like Dear Zindagi and Sardar Udham to illustrate how therapy and self-awareness often remain privileges. “There is a certain privilege associated with going to therapists or even knowing how to seek help. Most Indians don’t have that privilege,” he says. “So, they live with it, deal with it through religion, family, or sometimes not at all, and it presents itself in toxic traits. In Vasu, that’s what happens. It’s the story of a man who lives with that silence.”

A film that starts conversations on mental health

Shot over a few days with a close-knit crew of around 20 people, Vasu came together through clarity of vision and shared belief. Sidharth not only directed and wrote the film but also handled cinematography, while Mahesh coordinated as associate director, ensuring everything stayed on schedule.

“It was a very small indie guerrilla-style crew,” Mahesh recalls. “We had to do different jobs at different times. I was helping him choreograph scenes, manage people, move lights — everything. But everyone worked together to execute his vision.”

That vision, he adds, was remarkably precise. “When I got there, just four or five days before the shoot, everything was ready. He had rehearsed with the actors, done shot divisions, and planned locations. Even though it rained in between and our plans got juggled, everything went smoothly. Everyone was very cordial and happy with each other, which is very rare on film sets.”

Sidharth financed the film entirely through his personal savings, redirecting the funds he had set aside for living expenses in Berlin after deciding to discontinue his stay there. “It was a risk, but I believed in what I wanted to say through the film,” he says.

How a Kerala story found a global language

For Nandana Ajith, Sidharth’s wife and the film’s executive producer, Vasu was deeply personal from the very beginning.

“I was involved from the time he told me he had this story and had written the script,” she says. “We used to brainstorm on what could be changed and what we could do differently. During the shoot, I was coordinating the location, crew, managing expenses, and making sure everything ran smoothly. We had a lot of weather complications during the day, but thankfully everything came together well.”

She recalls how the team overcame challenges with limited resources. “There were tight budgets, unpredictable weather, and government approvals for locations — but somehow it all worked out. The rain even ended up adding to the cinematography of some scenes,” she says.

For Nandana, the story’s theme felt both intimate and universal. “The psychological aspect of the older generation is something nobody talks about,” she says. “Now, everybody is aware of depression and PTSD, but mostly for the current generation. There’s a bigger issue among the older generation — the workers, nurses, policemen, duty officers — people who were conditioned to never speak of pain. That’s what Vasu looks at.”

Bringing Vasu to life

The role of Vasu is played by Parameshan Kuryati, a seasoned theatre artist whose deeply internal performance anchors the film. Casting him, Sidharth recalls, was an instinctive choice that came from a shared understanding of the character’s emotional depth.

Even though Vasu is a short film, Sidharth treated it with the rigour of a feature. “He did multiple workshops with Parameshan,” says Nandana. “Sidharth wanted to make sure the essence of Vasu was portrayed exactly as he envisioned, because every person perceives a particular character differently.”

Stories that travel beyond screens

What began as a small student project in Kerala has travelled far beyond expectations. Vasu is now finding audiences across the world — a reminder that stories about mental health don’t need to shout to be heard.

Sidharth submitted the film independently, as MetFilm School initially did not support the entry, believing the chances of selection were slim. “Later, they were thrilled to see both my name and MetFilm School Berlin among the finalists,” he says. “It marked the school’s first-ever nomination at the Student Academy Awards.”

Following its recognition, Vasu has also secured a distributor, signalling the next stage in its journey.

“In Berlin, I realised how societies carry memory — with dignity, without denial,” Sidharth says. “In India, we’re still learning to do that — to sit with grief instead of silencing it.”

In that space between remembrance and release, Vasu found not just its voice, but its purpose — to remind us that healing begins the moment we choose to listen.

All pictures courtesy Sidharth Harikumar