Vetrimaaran, at a recent interaction held as part of the Chennai International Film Festival, said that alternative films depend on film festivals to reach their audience, and that festivals provide a platform for filmmakers who do not wish to compromise on their political and social ideas.
“Primarily, a festival is a platform to sell films that are not meant for the mainstream audience. Cultural exchange is also important aspect of a film festival. Film festivals give less of a platform to mainstream films because they already have a market.”
Vetrimaaran says that films that were awarded were once considered taboo by the film fraternity but has since become something of a marketing strategy.
“Sometime ago, winning an award was taboo. If a director won the national award, then the director’s career was as good as over. But today, it [the award] has become a marketing strategy. That is what we tried with K. Manikandan’s Kaaka Muttai (produced by Vetri Maaran jointly with Dhanush and distributed by Fox Star Studios India) and Visaranai. With both the films, we wanted to explore the festival circuit first and release the film after that,” he said.
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Vetrimaaran also had helpful advice for those wishing to take their movies to festivals. The director said that a lot of thought must be given to the kind of festivals that we choose for our movies. “In Toronto, the film festival is like a carnival…entire families come to it. Visaranai is not a film for that festival, while Kaaka Muttai will be preferred. Cannes Film Festival prefers political films. We have to target certain festivals based on our films,” he said.
Vetrimaaran was speaking as part of an interactive session organised by the Chennai International Film Festival, titled ‘Manouevring Film Festivals With Vetrimaaran’.