'Valatty - Tale Of Tails': A Unique Love Story Of 2 Dogs

Romcom movies have long been a source of comfort, a go-to genre for whenever one needs a dose of happiness. There's a new romcom all set to hit theatres, but, with a pawsome twist. New film from Kerala, Valatty is a love story of two dogs, brought up in contrasting cultural conditions. 

Valatty - Tale of Tails is the story of two dogs Tomy and Amalu, who fall in love, despite the religious differences of their owners. While one of the owners is vegetarian, brought up in a Palakkad Iyer family, the other enjoys his meat. As a result of this friction, the dogs decide to elope as their love transcends their owner's culinary taste differences. 

While making the film, the film-maker says the attempt was to avoid assigning any nativity to the dogs or the characters so it could be more universal. Even the vehicles carry DW (Dogs World) in the number plate. 

Actor-producer Vijay Babu of Friday Film House, who has financed the film, says Valatty is a 'first-of-its-kind' Indian film and took 3 and a half years to make. He tells NDTV that the puppies were adopted and trained according to the script. The shoot took over 100 days followed by a year of post-production work. 

The film has minimal use of animation and has majorly been shot with real dogs. "The expressions- sad, angry, happy, smiling, all are real. Only where there is dialogue in close-up, animation has been used for about 15 minutes in the film," Vijay Babu told NDTV. 

The male lead Tomy is played by a Golden Retriever, the female lead by a cocker spaniel and the antagonist by a Rottweiler. The film also features a country dog that plays the hero's friend. The film-maker atells NDTV that the dogs have now been adopted by loving families.   

The 'experimental' film, written and directed by debutant filmmaker Devan, features 11 dogs and a rooster. The film also touches upon the issue of stray dogs which is now a sensitive subject in Kerala, after recent incidents of cases of attacks by strays. 

The film will release in five Indian languages- Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Hindi. The dubbing for the lead characters has been done by well-known voices in different languages. Roshan Mathew has given voice to the lead hero Tomy and Raveena Ravi has voiced the female lead Amalu in all south Indian languages. 

Notable Malayalam actors, including Soubin Shahir, Indrans, Sunny Wayne, Saiju Kurup, Aju Varghese, Ranjini Haridas, Mahima Nambiar and others have lent their voices to the animal cast. Valatty has Vishnu Panicker as the cinematographer and Ayoob Khan as the editor. Music is composed by Varun Sunil. 

The Malayalam and Kannada versions of the film are set to be released on July 21. The Hindi, Tamil and Telugu versions will hit the theatres on July 28. Dil Raju releases the Telugu version, Anil Thadani the Hindi version, Bengaluru-based Hombale of KGF and Kantara fame, KRG is doing the Kannada version and holds worldwide release rights.