Even as news comes in of a possible April release for the much-delayed Gautham Vasudev Menon film Enai Noki Paayum Thota, starring Dhanush and Megha Akash, the South Indian Film Financiers’ Association (SIFFA) has taken a call to stop financing the director’s films till he releases his pending projects.
SIFFA funds 85 per cent of Tamil films, including Gautham’s Enai Noki Paayum Thota and Dhruva Natchathiram. Talking about it, Tirupur Subramaniam, President-SIFFA, was quoted by DTNext as saying: “We will not fund any of his projects until he releases ENPT and Dhruva Natchathiram. ENPT has been censored without Dhanush dubbing for his character. The budget of the film is Rs 30 crore, and despite being a producer, he hasn’t paid the final installment of Dhanush’s remuneration, which is 1 crore.”
“Only self-financing production houses such as AGS Entertianment, Lyca, Sun Pictures and Red Giant, who make films with big stars, will be releasing films from the second half of this year. It is because we will not be financing other producers who owe SIFFA a huge amount of money,” he added.
Agreeing with SIFFA’s decision, producer SR Prabhu, treasurer of the Tamil Film Producers’ Council said, “It is a decision that has been taken by a body and we cannot intervene. There are several producers who haven’t paid the interests to financiers. So, it is right on their part to stop financing films.”
Meanwhile, ENPT‘s co-producer Madan of Escape Artists Motion Pictures announced on Twitter that the trailer for the film is ready.
#ENPT – Trailer is ready and working for Release of the movie. If things go well, can look forward to an April release 🙏😊
— Madan (@Madan2791) March 6, 2019
Enai Noki Paayum Thota had created a lot of buzz among fans when it was first announced. The teaser released in 2016 and garnered a very positive response. The filmmakers promised that it would hit cinemas during Valentine’s 2017. However, the film was put in cold storage due to various reasons.
Gautham moved on to work on his ambitious film Dhruva Natchathiram, which was to initially star Suriya. After he opted out, work began with Vikram in the lead. The shooting for ENTP resumed by the end of 2017, in Chennai.
Said to be a romantic thriller, ENTP is produced by Madan of Escape Artists Motion Pictures, along with Gautham Vasudev Menon’s Ondraga Entertainment. It was recently censored and given a U/A certificate.
The film’s songs released a long while ago, and ‘Maruvaarthai Pesadhe’, ‘Visiri’, ‘Naan Pizhaippeno’, composed by Darbuka Siva, are already quite popular. Interestingly, Gautham had kept the identity of the music director a secret for a long time, it it was revealed it was Darbuka Siva.
