Jango, the upcoming Tamil scientific fiction film, is set to hit the big screens on Friday. It revolves around the concept of a time loop, debutant filmmaker Mano Karthikeyan tells Silverscreen India.
Written and directed by Mano, the film is backed by producer CV Kumar under the Thirukumaran Entertainments banner and is co-produced by Surendirran Ravi.
“A time loop is where a particular period of time gets repeated over and over,” explains Mano, who has previously assisted directors Ram Kumar and Arivazhagan. “It is not much explored in Tamil cinema, and hence I chose this concept. The film follows the protagonist, a brain surgeon, who gets stuck in a time loop. At the same time, he also encounters another problem. How he comes out of the loop and solves the other problem forms the rest of the story.”
Debutant Satheesh Kumar plays the protagonist, while the cast also includes Mrinalini Ravi, Anitha Sampath, Hareesh Peradi, Velu Prabhakaran, Karunakaran, Ramesh Tilak, Daniel Annie Pope, and Nakkalites Danam.
“When working under Arivazhagan, I gained technical knowledge on filmmaking. At the same time, my friend’s circle includes directors like R Ravikumar (who directed the sci-fi film Indru Netru Naalai) and ARK Saravan (who made the fantasy film Maragatha Naanayam). Since they have directed similar themes, I discussed such topics with them and chose to make my debut with a sci-fi comedy,” the filmmaker adds.
Mano started writing the script in 2016 and took a year to complete it. He then approached the producer and the film’s pre-production work began in 2018. Jango went on floors later that same year. It was shot completely in Chennai by cinematographer Karthik K Thillai.
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The title translates to ‘awake’ in Turkish, the director tells us, adding that they chose it since the story has the “hero waking up” often.
On adapting a science fiction fantasy story for the Tamil audience, the filmmaker says his main challenge was in perfecting the screenplay. But, it also presented some challenges to the actors, he adds. “It is a non-linear screenplay and it was a bit confusing for the actors to keep track of what day of the time loop their characters were on. The direction department too had to pay extra attention to the continuity of scenes since only the hero’s costumes would change, while others remained the same.”
Ghibran has composed three songs for the film. Edited by San Lokesh, Jango runs for two hours and 17 minutes and has been certified U.