Suspended from AMMA, Thilakan says he will not give up

Veteran actor Thilakan, who was on Monday suspended from the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (AMMA), said he would not give up his fight for justice.

Talking to reporters here on Monday, Mr. Thilakan said AMMA had still not made it clear what sin he had committed. Stating that he felt indifferent and unmoved by the news of his suspension, the actor said he stood to lose nothing. Only AMMA would lose by suspending him.

Alleging that issues and controversies began cropping up in the Malayalam film industry only after the constitution of AMMA, Mr. Thilakan said the functioning of the association was not transparent. It had not clarified how he had disgraced it. On the other hand, AMMA members had gone about branding him insane, he said, adding that he still did not know what wrong he had done to the organization.

Whether he would present himself before the association on March 8 would be decided in due course, he said, stating that he had the courage to move forward on his own. If the need arose, he would set up a parallel organization as well, he said.

He was thinking of a new cinema, which would be announced next month, for which he had support of many other people in the industry, he said, adding that he was considering moving the court too on the issue. Earlier, Mr. Thilakan said he had not invited or requested actor Mammootty to play mediator in the issue between him and AMMA.

Meanwhile, Sohan Roy, the director of ‘Dam 999’, an international English movie project being produced by Marine BizTV, said here on Monday that Mr. Thilakan was being removed from the cast of the movie since he had been suspended from AMMA and because the Film Employees Federation of Kerala (FEFKA) had asked him not to cast Mr. Thilakan in the movie, which is based on the Mullaperiyar issue and involves an international cast including Bollywood actors.

Mr. Roy, who said that the MACTA Federation had meanwhile asked him to involve its members in the project, said he would have to think about moving the location of the movie from Muhamma in Alappuzha if the present controversies in the Malayalam film industry affected its progress.