Last month, Joshi Benedict, a filmmaker from Tiruvampadi Pullurampara, Kozhikode, Kerala, India, won the National Film Award for his eight-minute animated film The Coconut Tree. This short exploration of the relationship between nature and humanity was both a big win for Benedict and a source of great pride for the Malayalam community that he hails from.
The Coconut Tree: Plot Basics
The Coconut Tree is an eight-minute film about an ordinary housewife who lives in a hilly region. Her life shifts to an unexpected trajectory after she plants a coconut sapling. The film turns her experience in nurturing the plant into a metaphor for growth and change and reflects on how the most minor, insignificant choice can have a profound impact on a person’s life. The experience of nurturing and caring for the coconut tree does a beautiful job of intertwining different themes, such as nature, resilience, and personal transformation, to show how the tree has gone from simply a tree to a symbol and physical manifestation of hope for the protagonist.
Joshy Benedict’s Background
The creator of this short film, Joshy Benedict, has a background in the visual arts and studied painting at Thrissur Fine Arts College. He also worked in animation, specifically graphic novels, before venturing into making animated films. These graphic novel works were well-received due to their storytelling and artistic style. They also allowed him to show off his unique skills at mixing intricate narratives into visual art presentations through different forms of media.
His award win was live-streamed on YouTube by the jury, which was made up of many filmmakers and film personalities from across the Indian cinematic world. Benedict’s first debut into the world of animated storytelling was with the graphic novel The Pig Flip, initially released in Malayalam as Pannimalath, which was widely praised within Kerala’s artistic and literary communities.
Final Thoughts
The Coconut Tree is an eight-minute animated film released by Joshi Benedict that tells the story of a housewife who plants a coconut sapling. That sapling changes her life as the sapling, and her experience in nurturing it represents a metaphor for the growth mindset and change, along with a reflection of change and the impact of your choices.
The film also represents a seismic shift for its creator, who had previously worked as a graphic novel artist and had limited filmmaking experience. While he had some work in animated filmmaking before, this was his first independent animated short. Benedict did have experience through his graphic novel writing in mixing narratives into his visual presentation of art. The fact that he did such a good job with this film that it won him the national award for best animated film is extremely impressive and a point of pride for Joshi and his home of Tiruvampadi Pullurampara.
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