Directed by cinematographer Chezhiyan, who makes his debut with the film, To Let is a melancholy drama produced by the director’s wife, Prema under the banner Zhla Cinema. The film features debutants Santhosh Sreeram, Sheela and Dharun in the lead roles. The trailer of the film was unveiled recently.
The trailer with a run time close to two minutes shows the life of a small family living in a rented house who are suddenly ordered by their landlady to vacate. It shows how the couple face awkward situations when the landlady brings in other visitors inside their house to look at it. It is seen that Santhosh Sreeram – the protagonist, works as a dubbing artiste, while Sheela is a home maker. When their son Siddharth is asked what is his father, the way he stammers establishes the background of the family.
As the family finally decides to go in search of houses, they face rejections due to various reasons. Towards the end of the trailer, the boy asks Apparam enn indha veedu mattum nammalodadhu illa? (When everything we have is ours, why is the house not ours?) – a line which captures the essence of the film, and the troubles of an entire generation.
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The story of To Let is grounded on real experiences. It’s about the problems encountered by Chennai’s working class when they want to move homes. The idea came from Chezhiyan’s own experiences and his friends’ experiences as tenants in the city. He wanted to film the emotional bond one attaches to their house. And that was the inspiration, in a city like Chennai, where one might not live in a house for longer than two years. “There are many problems with shifting, and it becomes difficult because memories get attached to a house. So I thought why not make a film about this,” he said, in an interview to Silverscreen earlier.
The film won the National Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil this year, has received 26 international awards, and been nominated for 80. The film is scheduled to hit the screens on February 21.
Watch the trailer here: