Films that were made with cinema as the backdrop, has always captured the hearts of Malayalee viewers. Be it in 'Udhayannu Tharam','Chathikkatha Chanthu', or 'Lekhayude Maranam - Oru Flashback', to name a few, every film with a backdrop of cinema invited interests due to their refreshing narratives and untold elements in the making of movies.

Now after two decades in filmdom, Film director Ranjith is making a tribute to his struggling days of eighties with the new film 'Thirakkatha'. The film, produced under the banner of Varnachitra Big Screen and Capitol Theatre, has Prithviraj playing the lead role, that of a young filmmaker named Akbar Ahmed. The movie narrates the story of a young film director who is in the search for a perfect script to make a movie.

Akbar runs a cafeteria 'Casablanca', named after the classic love story, with his sweetheart Devayani. He has a group of friends, who also share his passion for Cinema. It was with them that Akbar produced and directed his first film, which has been a huge success, critically and commercially. But Akbar is also a little worried because he faced some criticisms for plagiarisms in the story lines in his debut venture and so is very keenly trying to avoid any similarities with any other films in his new venture.

Following the suggestion of Devayani, Akbar decides to choose a very different kind of story, for his second film. This time he bases his film on the life of Malavika, who was once a very popular actress and whose present whereabouts is unknown. Many stories were circulating about her as being in America, or in North India.  Akbar and his friends go tracking Malavika. After much attempts they succeeds to get to her but also come face-to-face with a love story that was unknown to the world. And this love story forms the plot for Akbar's new film. `Thirakkatha', thus spans a period of three decades in the history of contemporary Malayalam Cinema and its making.

Prithviraj is back to work again with the director Renjith who gave him his first break-in `Nandanam with this new film. The `young star has high hopes about 'Thirakkatha' .He opines that without the backdrop of cinema this tender love story may not have worked well.   Anoop Menon plays Malavika's hero Ajayachandran, nobody who becomes a superstar, in `Thirakkatha'.

Samvritha Sunil gives company to Prithviraj's Akbar Ahmed as Devayani, while this year's national award winner Priyamani makes a comeback to Mollywood as Malavika.  Nishant Sagar plays a key role as a cinematographer named Kevin Paul. `Thirakkatha' also stars Khushboo, Siddharth ,Cochin Haneefa, Maniyan Pilla Raju, Nandu, Nishanth Sagar, K. B. Venu, Mallika Sukumaran, Surabhi, and Augustine.             

M.J. Radhakrishnan, fresh from his State award for `Adayalangal' cranks the camera for `Thirakkatha' which was shot at Thiruvananthapuram, Wayanad and Kozhikkode. This movie will also mark the comeback of music director Sharath after eight years. The movie will feature five songs set to his music by him in the lyrics by Rafiq Ahmed.

`Thirakkatha' is expected to grace the theatres as an Onam flick and emerge the dark horse among the lot, giving a welcome hit to director Renjith who hadn't created one in the last five years.