Nasir, a film by Tamil filmmaker Arun Karthick, will be screened at the American Film Institute Festival, on October 19. The film was awarded the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.
It premiered in India on June 6 as a part of MAMI’s online film festival, We Are One: A Global Film Festival. The film talks about life of a Muslim man in Coimbatore, as he navigates through religious intolerance. The film, which stars theatre veteran Koumarane Valavane as the titular role, recently won the Grand Prix award at 14th Andrei Tarkovsky Zerkalo International Film Festival in Russia.
In an interview with The Times of India, the director mentioned that although Nasir is based on Dilip’s Kumar’s 1998 short story, A Clerk’s Story, there were personal experiences too, that prompted him to make this movie. He further told the newspaper that in preparation of the film, he moved to Muslim neighbourhoods like Town Hall and Marakkadai, for around two years. It was challenging for the crew and him to shoot in the crowded streets of Coimbatore, he added.
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The IFFR website states that Arun is a self-taught filmmaker from Coimbatore. He made his feature debut in 2015 with Sivapuranam. He told The Times of India that even though A Clerk’s Story was written in the 90s, the story still holds relevance. Nasir would have made the rounds of more film festivals had it not been for the Covid-19 pandemic, the director said.
Talking about his inspiration for the film, Arun told the daily that he was a firsthand witness to riots in 2016, which made him want to tell Dilip’s story. It took him around two-and-a-half years to make this film, he added. Nasir is co-produced by Stray Factory Rinkel Film, Uncombed Buddha, Magic Hour Films, Colored Pickle Films, and Harman Ventures.