With Pitta Kathalu, Netflix’s upcoming Telugu anthology film, writer-director Tharun Bhascker says he has shifted genres- from romantic comedy to dark comedy.
In conversation with Telugu actor Naga Chaitanya, who was last seen in 2019 film Venky Mama, about his directorial segment Ramula during an interaction organised by Netflix, Bhascker said, “I consciously wanted to change the genre because… it’s the start of my career. I want to do as many experiments as possible, to wait and see if we can get better at different things. My main thing was to just break away from comedy and explore dark humour and also probably something more serious, and see where it leads me, otherwise I knew, I will put myself in a box and say only romcoms and comedy and… that will really tire me later, I felt.”
Pitta Kathalu, which releases on Netflix on February 19, marks the streaming giant’s first Telugu anthology film. The film has four segments, each directed by BV Nandini Reddy, Nag Ashwin, and Sankalp Reddy, along with Bhascker.
Chaitanya, who was moderating the interaction, described Ramula’s story as “how we get caught up in someone else’s agenda for no fault of ours and how life just goes off on a circle from there.”
Photo Credit: Netflix
Speaking about his OTT debut, Bhascker, who directed the 2016 Telugu film Pelli Choopulu, talked about the difference between writing for the big screen and the OTT. “Yes it is 100% different because for a two-hour film, we have these formats, right? So we are also talking about it, and interval bang, second half and that happens. But suddenly when there is a 30-minute thing what can you talk about. These are conversations that we have, when every time we are having coffee, and we are chatting with friends and we talk about something that happened some time back sometimes those stories are only 20 minutes, thirty minutes or whatever.”
Bhascker also agreed to the fact that while writing for OTT is more creatively satisfying, it is also more challenging.
When Bhascker asked Chaitanya if actors who are “used to being on the large screen” would be willing to appear in a 15-minute long segment on OTT, the actor said “I have always wanted to try different things. There are so many things in my mind that I want to express but I am always scared on screen because we’re so used to this format and there are so many permutations and combinations to it- will it work out or not work out? But just like how you said-there is so much more creative freedom when you don’t have those rules. And that’s what you’re doing right now. So, I’m definitely curious and I think I definitely want to attempt that too. Somewhere, we need to start balancing it out.”
Asked if OTT gives actors room to experiment, Manchu said: “Not that this script had any of those elements that we could not have done in a regular theatrical film, but it’s just a feeling- I can be whatever, there is no boss, no boundaries.”
Debutant actor Megghana, who essays the titular role, in a press statement said, “The central theme of Pitta Kathalu is the power dynamics between men and women. Ramula is the story of a free spirited girl, quite ordinary, and her extraordinary journey with her lover.”
The others include Nandini Reddy’s Meera, Nag Ashwin’s xLife, and Sankalp Reddy’s Pinky.
Ronnie Screwvala’s RSVP Movies and Ashi Dua Sara’s Flying Unicorn Entertainment, which had produced Netflix’s first Tamil anthology film, Paava Kadhaigal that released in December 2020, will be producing Pitta Kathalu.
Barroz will be about a man who stands guard to a 400-year-old treasure of Vasco D’Gama and will be set in a Portuguese backdrop, according to IMDb. Written by Jijo Punnoose, Barroz will feature Spanish actors Rafael Amargo who will be seen playing the Portuguese explorer Vasco Da Gama, Shayla McCaffrey and Paz Vaga, in lead roles, as reported by ETimes.
While announcing the film in 2019, Mohanlal had said that it will be shot in Goa and will be a 3D fantasy film for children. It is expected to release in 2022.
The actor who completed over 40 years in cinema, predominantly working in the Malayalam film industry, also hinted at a possible sequel, tentatively titled Lucifer 2: Empuraan to his 2019 film Lucifer.Lucifer was actor Prithviraj Sukumaran‘s directorial debut. Lucifer is the highest grossing Malayalam film ever having made Rs. 200 crore globally.
The makers had released a clip from the film on social media in 2019 to announce the sequel.
The film was announced at an event in Kochi in 2019. As per an ETimes report, writer Murali Gopy said, “After understanding the economic feasibility, we decided to go ahead with the second part. The first part was just a tip of the iceberg which has many fulcrum points. The upcoming films will explore the inner layers of it. We expect that it will be liked by Lucifer fan followers.”
He added, “The second film will not be the continuation of the story you saw in Lucifer, but it will explain what happened before the Lucifer movie and what will happen after. The film will deal with how the characters in the movie got to point where Lucifer played out.”
Radhe Shyam, the upcoming romantic drama film starring Prabhas and Pooja Hegde, will release on July 30, the makers of the film announced in social media on Sunday.
Written and directed by Radha Krishna Kumar, Radhe Shyam is produced by UV Creations and T-Series production banners, presented by Krishnam Raju under Gopi Krishna Movies. The film will mark Kumar’s second directorial venture after the 2015 Telugu action film Jil.
This Valentines, let us celebrate love with the biggest announcement of the year! ☺️💕 #RadheShyam to release in a theatre near you on 30th July! 💥💥 #ValentinesWithRS
The film also stars Bhagyashree, Murali Sharma, Sachin Khedekar, Priyadarshi, Sasha Chettri, Sathyan, among others. The romantic drama will be set against the backdrop of Europe in the 70s.
Speaking to Silverscreen India, the film’s publicity manager Eluru Srinu said, “The shooting has been wrapped up last week and the post-production is going on. Currently, the team is working on the VFX and final editing of the film in Hyderabad and Mumbai.”
He said that the dubbing will commence from March and the lead actors will dub for themselves for the Telugu version. “The film was shot in Hyderabad and few places in Italy. The team will also incorporate CG (computer graphics) to make look portions of film shot in European countries,” he said.
The cinematographer of the film is Manoj Paramahamsa and the editing is handled by Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao. While music is composed by Justin Prabhakaran for the Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada versions, Mithoon and Manan Bhardwaj will be composing music for the Hindi version.
Antony, Justin’s manager, said, “All the musical works for the film are going in parallel with each other, including the work for teaser and song recording.”
Nikil Murukan, the publicity manager of the Tamil version, told Silverscreen India that the film will not be dubbed in other languages and will be shot separately. “The filmmakers will acquire the censor certificate separately for each language,” he added.
Radhe Shyam will release in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi.
Two policemen from a Malabar small-town disguise themselves as daily-wage labourers and travel to a remote mountain hamlet to arrest a fugitive. “This world is teeming with criminals. Our job is to nab the ones we need and pay no attention to the others,” sermonises the senior to the junior. The village seems like a normal place at first, inhabited by the salt of the earth. But something is lurking in its shadows.
Lijo Jose Pellissery enjoys a cult status among the young moviegoers in Kerala that few of his contemporaries do. A mere mention of his name on the screen prompts applause in cinema halls. His macabre portrayal of the menfolk in a village chasing a buffalo in Jallikattu (2019) had not only earned an undue amount of praise from all corners but also became India’s official selection to the Oscars. Not very long after the premiere of Jallikattu, Lijo made his next film, Churuli which is set in a similar milieu ﹣a remote forest village full of men with a talent for violence. Three women make a brief appearance, only to amplify the noises in the male universe. Not soon after the movie begins, not so surprisingly, everything descents into a state of madness.
A tidbit about the language of Churuli is displayed on the screen at the beginning, presenting the film as an ethnographic work. It is just one of the many deceits the film tries out. Lijo’s vocabulary hasn’t changed much from the days of Double Barrel. If he had tried his hands at being a metaphysician in Ee Ma Yau and Jallikattu, in Churuli he returns to where he began ﹣playing with the possibilities of the commercial cinema to create a visual mishmash that looks off-mainstream.
The film opens with a woman’s voice-over narrating to a young man (or a boy) the story of a brahmin who, while looking for a mischievous minion named perumaadan, got trapped in an unending spiral inside a forest. There are frequent allusions to this story in the narrative, in the form of symbols and signs like close shots of spider webs.
But there is much else than the visual gimmicks. Lijo inserts an excess of curious elements into the narrative to create an irrational world to house the perumaadan fable. Although the plot is intrinsically connected to the place it is set in, the film is indifferent to its physical environment. The thick rain forest is brutally disfigured in every frame using over-the-top visual effects. Characters are loud and impertinent, drawing attention to themselves in every shot. There is no moment of rumination.
The cops find a job in a toddy parlour inside the forest, run by a villager whose name they can’t confirm (Jaffar Idukki). The parlour has the ersatz aesthetics of Kochi’s modern cafes that mimic old-fashioned rural eateries. At night, the area around it becomes a theatre of horror. Glowing apparitions flash across the forest. Bodiless tuskers trumpet from dangerous proximity. Lijo creates a space-time discordance ﹣a loop ﹣ using knotty editing that seems more whimsical than like a plan.
The movie’s dialogue sound stilted. In a scene in the beginning, Antony (Chemban Vinod Jose), the senior policeman, explains to Shajeevan (Vinay Forrt), the junior who is not quite a fresher in the field, the simple nuances of being a cop in civilian clothes. The film’s perspective of human beings has an exhausting simplicity. The villagers are raw meat-eating pre-cultural creatures who kill, cuss and fornicate like beasts. They are without a past. The film doesn’t deal with the sociological context of the villagers’ hostility towards the outsiders. There seems to be no future too. In a scene close to the climax, an abject mess, the villagers gather around the cops and discuss different ways to kill them. For comic effect, their lack of concern for humanity and law is stretched to a senseless extent.
In all fairness to the plot, there could have been an exciting film in this clutter. Unlike Antony, who loses himself in the unbridled fun the village offers, Shajeevan starts to transform psychologically into someone the village seems to be familiar with. Every villager he meets tells him that they have seen him before. At one point, out of the blue, he becomes fluent in the village’s tongue. At the village’s only hospital, a sauna-massage parlour, run by a woman determined to seduce healthy men in her vicinity, he is accused of fooling around with a boy. It must be noted that paedophilia is one of the crimes the fugitive they are looking for has on his records. Is he the same young man the woman narrated the story of perumaadan and the brahmin to? Is he a real person or just another element in the loop that the minion constructed? Lijo, using technical complexities, gonzo production design and convoluted storytelling, ensures that the viewers don’t find the answers to these questions the first time.
However, he doesn’t offer enough incentive for the viewer to return for a second watch.
The Bible, the filmmaker’s favourite text, makes an appearance too. Two passages, of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, bookend the film ﹣a feeble effort to tie the loose ends together and furnish some profoundness on the film’s shallow texture. But there is only so much God can do when the men are resolved to uphold nonsense.
****
The Churuli review is a Silverscreen original article. It was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Silverscreenindia.com and its writers do not have any commercial relationship with movies that are reviewed on the site.
Kangana Ranaut, the National Award-winning actor, increased her security after threats of protests erupted at the location where she was shooting for her upcoming Hindi film Dhaakad, the actor announced on February 12.
In her social media post, the actor, who called the incident as the “chronicles of an opinionated woman”, alleged that some Congress workers in Madhya Pradesh carried out protests against her while she was shooting in the state. She wrote that she had to change her vehicle and take a longer route.
Police protection has been increased around me as @INCIndia workers in MP carried out a protest to stop my shoot. Congress MLA’s are saying they are protesting on behalf of farmers, which farmers gave them such a power of attorney why can’t they protest for themselves?
This came after the Manikarnikaactor on February 2 courted controversy for calling farmers “terrorists” in response to pop-star Rihanna’s statement on the ongoing farmers’ protests.
No one is talking about it because they are not farmers they are terrorists who are trying to divide India, so that China can take over our vulnerable broken nation and make it a Chinese colony much like USA… Sit down you fool, we are not selling our nation like you dummies. https://t.co/OIAD5Pa61a
As a result, a second complaint was filed against Ranaut in Karnataka. Harshvardhan Patil, an advocate, filed a complaint against Ranaut at the Tilakwadi police station at Belagavi in Karnataka.
According to Patil, Ranaut has been trying to provoke people to assault the farmers’ community and their families by making such derogatory remarks.
“If her statement is read keenly or meticulously, it can be seen that by addressing our nation as a vulnerable broken nation. Kangana Ranaut has also insulted the Indian Armed Forces and their capabilities and capacity. Her statements are not only causing insult and annoyance to the farming communities and their families, they are also giving cause for annoyance to our armed forces who have kept our country secured from any so-called vulnerabilities,” said Patil who comes from a farmers family in Belagavi.
The first complaint had been filed in October 2020, when the Karnataka police in Tumakuru filed a case against Ranaut over her tweet regarding the three Farm Bills following the First-Class Judicial Magistrate Court’s order based on a complaint filed by Ramesh Naik, an advocate from Karnataka.
The advocate had sought action on Ranaut’s tweet posted on September 21, 2020 where she had called the protesting farmers as “terrorists”.
Ranaut’s Dhaakad is directed by Razneesh Ghai and features actors Divya Dutta and Arjun Rampal. The first look posters of the actors from the film released in January.
Gina Carano, former MMA star and Hollywood actor, was fired from the Disney+ series The Mandalorian on February 10 after she shared some controversial social media posts. According to The Hollywood Reporter, she has been dropped as a client by UTA (United Talent Agency) as well.
“Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable,” a Lucasfilm spokesperson said in a statement according to the report.
The hashtag #FireGinaCarano started trending on Twitter after the actor put up a story on Instagram comparing a politically divided America to Nazi Germany.
According to Variety, the story shared by her was a post originally put up by someone else and it read, “Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors…even by children. Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views.”
Another photo on Carano’s Instagram story featured a person with several masks covering their face and head with the caption: “Meanwhile in California.”
The actor was previously been mired in a controversy for sharing posts about election fraud and making fun of gender pronouns.
Carano portrayed the character of Dune in the first two seasons of The Mandalorian and was set to reprise her role for the third season.
Now, according to a report in Deadline, Carano has hit back by announcing a new movie project she is making with the conservative website The Daily Wire.
Talking to Deadline Carano said, “The Daily Wire is helping make one of my dreams — to develop and produce my own film — come true. I cried out and my prayer was answered. I am sending out a direct message of hope to everyone living in fear of cancellation by the totalitarian mob. I have only just begun using my voice which is now freer than ever before, and I hope it inspires others to do the same. They can’t cancel us if we don’t let them.”
According to the report, Carano will develop, produce, and star in the upcoming film.
Azhagiya Kanne, the upcoming Tamil film that will be directed by debutant filmmaker R Vijayakumar, was formally launched through an inaugural ceremony in Chennai on Saturday.
Vijayakumar is a former associate of filmmaker Seenu Ramasamy, who has previously directed Tamil films including Thenmerku Paruvakaatru (2010), and Neerparavai (2012).
Azhagiya Kanne will feature Leo Sivakumar, son of debate anchor and orator Dindigul I Leoni, and actor Sanchita Shetty. The casting for other characters is in process.
Producer Xavier Britto, who last backed Vijay-starrer Master, will be producing this film under Esthell Entertainer banner. Music will be composed by NR Raghunandan and cinematography will be handled by AR Ashok Kumar. The film’s editor is Sangath Tamilan with Radhika in charge of choreography. Vairamuthu will be writing the lyrics.
Speaking at the ceremony, Sivakumar said, “My first film is Maamanithan, which is yet to be released. I have acted as Vijay Sethupathi’s younger brother under Seenu Ramasamy directorial and Vijayakumar was the associate director. Vijayakumar has taught me so much on the sets and praised my acting when I showed him my short film. One day, I got a call from the director’s office and was given a script to read. It was heart-wrenching. I had asked him to reserve the script for me and that wait has brought us here to this film.”
Shetty, who plays the female lead said: “As an artist, I had always wanted to do a love story for many years. Though so far, I have not read the bounded script. When Vijayakumar narrated a line about the story, I liked it instantly. I just came to know that the title is Azhagiya Kanne and is a very pleasant surprise.”
The filming commenced on Monday in Chennai. It will then continue in Madurai in Tamil Nadu, a statement from the makers said.
In V Shantaram’s 1937 directorial Duniya Na Mane, Nirmala (played by Santa Apte) is a rebellious wife and daughter-in-law. She refuses to go to her husband’s room and serve him tea or milk. In fact, she refuses to see his face. When her mother-in-law gives her milk to serve to her husband, Nirmala drinks it up and asks for more.
This unpleasantness is Nirmala’s politics, her mode of documenting injustice. The word insaaf (justice) is important to her. It helps her contain anger, use it where it is needed. But sometimes, what goes outside also leaves a seed inside, and Nirmala wonders if she has turned into a selfish and awful person. She rests her head against the photographs of her dead parents, and listens to a song of a street singer in the background:
Man saaf tera hai ya nahin, puch le jee se, phir jo kuch bhi karna hai tu kar khushi se, ghabra na kissi se (Ask yourself if your heart is pure, then be happy and fearless in doing you have set your heart on)
The song has another line that sharply captures the injustice meted out to Nirmala.
Sharbat ke dhokhe tujhe zehar pilaye (You were served poison in the name of sherbet).
In the film, when Kakasaheb comes to see Nirmala, a young orphan who stays with her uncle and aunt, before their marriage, he is accompanied by a young man. Nirmala is made to believe that the young man is her prospective husband. Nirmala however, is married off to the widower Kakasaheb, who is old enough to be her father.
Nirmala refuses to accept this as fate. She drives out the uncle who deceitfully married her off. There’s no gratitude from an orphan girl towards her uncle. It was injustice.
Notably, this unusually feisty woman appeared on screen almost a hundred years ago.
From our vantage point, mismatched marriages between old husbands and young wives may appear archaic. Marrying off young girls to old men is the theme of reformist writing and cinema of the early 20th century, and has been addressed by writers like Munshi Premchand, KM Munshi, and Narayan Hari Apte. Almost 10 years after Premchand’s Nirmala, another Nirmala appeared simultaneously in the Marathi film Kunku and Hindi film Duniya Na Mane, both based on Apte’s Na Patnari Goshta.
This Nirmala does not suffer in silence, but retains a strong sense of self. Her tough questions make her husband realise that he has been unfair to her. He tells her that she no longer has a husband and asks her to wipe off the vermillion from her forehead. She refuses to do it. It is one thing to contest injustice but another to fight the fear of ‘sin’ that this action implies for her. Her husband blesses her as a father and gives her his blessings to remarry. He leaves behind a note and goes on to die by suicide.
The film does not tell us whether she marries again, but it leaves us with an intricate end that is neither fully accomplished like a modern fulfilment, nor one that retreats entirely into tradition. It is an unbelievable story, one that the world would find it difficult to believe.
Duniya Na Mane may mean the world may not believe or may not be persuaded, or it may even follow an expression- hum to karenge, duniya mane ya na mane.
In the context of this film, these words acquire a sudden significance with multiple meanings towards the end. Meanwhile, Nirmala’s voice as she sings Hindi cinema’s first English song, based on Longfellow’s poem, stays with us:
Karnan, the upcoming Tamil period film starring Dhanush will release on April 9, 2021. The makers of the film took to social media to announce the news along with the film’s first look poster.
The film is being directed by Mari Selvaraj, who previously directed the hit 2018 Tamil film Pariyerum Perumal. “This can be called a lifestyle film and as a director, I cannot say further, since I want the audience to see the film and take it in. Dhanush has been a comfortable actor to work it and is a boon for directors who is passionate about filmmaking,” the director had told Silverscreen India after the release of the movie’s announcement teaser.
The film has been produced by Kalaippuli S Thanu, under his banner V Creations. He previously produced Dhanush’s Vellai Illa Pattadari 2 and Asuran.
Karnan is the first collaboration between Mari Selvaraj and Dhanush.
The film also stars Rajisha Vijayan, Gouri Kishan, Yogi Babu, and Lakshmi Priya Chandramouli.
The music has been composed by Santhosh Narayanan. According to the film’s choreographer Sandy, the film will have four songs. “There is a dance sequence that will be performed during death and Dhanush sir had danced for two BGM [background music] in it. He has perfectly combined it with accordance to the story,” he told Silverscreen India.
The film has been shot in Chennai, Thootukudi, Kanchipuram, and Tirunelveli.
Theni Eshwar was in charge of cinematography and the film’s editing has been done by Selva RK. The lyrics have been written by Yuga Bharathi.
Earlier, Dhanush had taken to social media to announce that Karnan will be released in theatres. He thanked the film’s producer for “thinking of the theatre owners, distributors, and exhibitors.”
Apart from Karnan, the Asuran actor will also be seen in The Gray Man, Jagame Thandhiram, and director Selvaraghavan’s Aayirathil Oruvan 2 and Naane Varuven.
The makers of the popular English horror film franchise Paranormal Activity have announced a reboot. The latest film will be helmed by filmmaker William Eubank and Christopher Landon, who is known for the 2017 horror film Happy Death Day.
While the plot details have not been revealed yet, the film is slated to release on March 4, 2022.
Eubank, who previously directed the 2020 thriller film Underwater is all set to direct the upcoming film. It will be written by Landon, who has written the last few instalments in the Paranormal Activity franchise.
According to a report by The Hollywood Reporter, Landon “a Paranormal stalwart who wrote four of the previous movies before going on to become a hit horror director in his own right, will pen the script for what is being described by insiders as an “unexpected retooling” of the franchise, being made by Paramount Players.”
The reboot will be produced by Jason Blum and Paranormal Activity creator Oren Peli.
Blum, who owns the production company Blumhouse, has also worked on other horror films such as Insidious and Sinister franchises.
Steven Schneider will serve as the film’s executive producer, along with Christopher Landon.
The franchise is famous for its found-footage style, a subgenre where the film is presented as audio-visual material that has been discovered as film/video recordings. The reboot will also be shot in the same format.
Paranormal Activity was first released in 2007 and its success led to multiple sequels. The movies are based on a mysterious entity terrorising members of a family and ultimately murdering them.
Known for its low budgets, the first film was reportedly made on a budget of $15,000. However, it became a highly profitable venture as it earned $193 million in the box office. The Hollywood Reporter wrote, “The movies capitalized on the growing use of video and cell phone cameras to tell spooky and jump-scare-filled tales to great effect.”
The sixth instalment titled Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension was released in 2015.
According to Collider, the 2016 film Blair Witch is said to be the last film that followed the found-footage style.
George C Wolfe, the filmmaker who directed the 2020 American drama film Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, will direct the upcoming biopic of gay rights activist Bayard Rustin, Rustin.
The Netflix film is produced by Higher Ground Productions, owned by former US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama, the streaming giant announced in a press release on Thursday.
“Rustin tells the story of charismatic, gay, civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, who overcame an onslaught of obstacles, and altered the course of American history by organising the 1963 march on Washington,” the press release said.
Rustin will be written by Academy Award winner Dustin Lance Black. Black will also be co-producing the film along with producer Bruce Cohen. Cohen has previously produced films, including black comedy-drama film American Beauty (1999), and the 2012 American romantic comedy drama film Silver Linings Playbook, both of which won Academy Awards and several other accolades.
Wolfe’s critically acclaimed Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom fetched several awards. It was the last film to star Chadwick Boseman, who died of colon cancer in August 2020.
Rustin will be part of Higher Ground Productions’ new slate of content that the Obamas’ will be producing for Netflix. The couple had signed a multiyear production deal with Netflix in 2018. The Obamas’ first production, the documentary film American Factory, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2019.
The projects, which are at various stages of development, includes a biopic on mountaineer Tenzing Norgay and the novel Exit West’s film adaptation. The production house will also produce two series, Firekeeper’s Daughter and Great Nation Parks, and two films, Satellite and The Young Wife.
Michelle Obama announced on Tuesday that she will launch a new cookery show for children called Waffles + Mochi, which will also be produced by Higher Ground Productions for the streaming platform. It will stream from March 16.
Aelay, the Tamil film that was set to have a theatrical release on Friday, will now have a worldwide television premiere on Star Vijay on February 28, the makers of the film announced in a press release on Thursday.
While the statement did not reveal why the film’s makers backed out from their earlier decision, a statement issued by the Tamil Film Active Producers Association on Wednesday supported the film’s makers. The statement said that despite the producers opting for a theatrical release, cinema hall owners objected to the film releasing on a streaming platform soon after its theatrical release.
“In this situation, the producers of Aelay, which is to release on 12th, who did not selfishly think about themselves and also wanted the theatres to prosper, decided to release their film on which they had spent crores making. However, the theatre owners, who ignored our request for a discussion, selfishly demanded the producers to write a letter stating that the film will not be released on OTT platforms for 30 days and pressured that they will not release the film otherwise,” the statement said.
It also said that films are made for “people’s happiness” and not to become “a prey to the theatres”.
Still from ‘Aelay’ trailer
What are theatre associations saying?
Speaking to Silverscreen India, members of theatre associations claimed that makers of Aelay may not have been able to secure enough screens in theatres since quite a few films are releasing on Friday on the occasion of Valentine’s Day.
Tiruppur Subramaniam, president of the Tamil Nadu Theatres and Multiplexes Owners Association, said, “This week, around four films are releasing, so the availability of theatres will be very low. They would have got only a few theatres, and that is why they may have opted for a TV premiere. Apart from Aelay, there are about four Tamil films that are releasing in theatres today (February 12) and hence they may have not gotten the screens to release.”
“However, we don’t know if there are any reasons to skip a theatrical release. Only the production house would know,” he added.
Other films that are releasing are Tamil anthology film Kutty Story, Care of Kaadhal (remake of Telugu film C/o Kancharapalem), comedian Santhanam’s Parris Jeyaraj, and actor Dinesh’s Naanum Single Dhaan.
Still from Aelay trailer
Producer’s stance
Produced by Y Not Studios, Reliance Entertainment, and Wallwatcher Films, Aelay is directed by filmmaker Halitha Shameem, starring Samuthirakanni and Manikandan in the lead.
Speaking to Silverscreen India, producer Sashikanth of Y Not Studios said, “I don’t want to get into the specifics, and we have already issued a clear statement saying that the situation is not conducive and hence we have looked at an alternative.”
Asked if the decision to skip the theatrical release was due to the OTT premiere window or non-availability of theatres, he said, “Isn’t it quite obvious? The theatre federation has clearly stipulated that, isn’t it? They have stipulated that the window should be four weeks. Now they say that the theatres are not available?”
Calling it a “silly debate” since they announced the film’s release date on January 20, Sashikanth said, “There is no point in discussing this. It is very obvious. We are a reputed production house and we have never gone on OTT or digital premiere. It is very clear that they are doing this on specific intent. I would not want to comment because it is very self-explanatory. This is clearly because of development on grounds.”
“There were 113 screens on Friday that my office said were available last Friday. We are also distributors. Less I speak about this is better,” he said.
Still from ‘Aelay’ trailer
Are theatres not available due to more films?
Asked if too many films releasing simultaneously had reduced screenings, Ruban of GK Cinemas in Chennai said: “It is the production’s choice. It is not because theatres were unavailable. For a film like Aelay, it is intended for multiplexes, so screens would have been available. It is their choice of release, we cannot comment on that. But as a theatre owner, we give equal importance to all the films to allocate the screenings.”
What about other films?
Asked about the gap between a theatrical release and its OTT premier, some producers said a 30-day period is the latest agreed-upon time period.
Ashwin Kumar, executive producer at Vels Film International that is producing Kutty Story, said, “We have given a letter for releasing it on an OTT platform after 30 days. That is what the theatre owners requested it and we said okay for it. We are in talks with Amazon Prime Video and Hotstar.”
IB Karthikeyan of Big Print Pictures, that is producing Care of Kaadhal, said, “We will be releasing the film after 30 days. We have so far given a verbal statement regarding the same to our distributors. The film will release on Netflix and the agreement is over. After the theatrical run, we will announce it officially. It may come after 45-60 days and Netflix will plan about it.”
Madurai-based filmmaker Vinothraj PS’s debut film, Pebbles (Koozhangal), won the Tiger Competition Award at the 50th International Film Festival of Rotterdam last week, becoming the second Indian film and the first Tamil film to win the coveted honour.
The award wasn’t entirely unexpected, says the 31-year-old filmmaker. Ever since the virtual edition of the film festival began on February 1, he had attended countless video conferences, sometimes at odd hours of the day, with people from different parts of the world.
“Everyone who had watched the film at the festival had liked it. We knew we were going to win something.”
Poster of ‘Pebbles’
Pebbles is imprinted with the heat and harshness of the terrain of Arittapatti, a village in Madurai. Through the vast treeless landscape under the blazing sun, a little boy and his father, two people who share more discordance than love, walk 13 kilometres. The journey begins in the pursuit of the mother who, unable to put up with the callousness of her alcoholic husband, had left them for her mother’s house. The woman never makes an appearance in the film, but her grinding existence in the drought-hit village is registered in granular details.
The film draws from the life of Vinoth’s elder sister who was, a few years ago, forced out of her house in the middle of the night with her infant daughter by her husband. She walked around 20 kilometres overnight through the parched landscape between Melur and Madurai to reach her mother’s house.
“The incident made me angry but I didn’t know how to respond to it. Pebbles came out of my exasperation..” he says. The sister makes a fleeting appearance in the film, as a blur in the distance as the little boy looks on. An unassuming tribute.
Before Pebbles began its film festival journey, Vinoth screened a rough-cut at home for the family.
“All the women wept. They said they could see themselves in the film.”
A still from ‘Pebbles’
The film was shot for 33 days, between 2016 and 2020. Vinoth started with a tiny crew, with the money donated by his friends and well-wishers who had seen his short film, Subway. In 2019, after having completed almost 75% of the film, the filmmaker reached a dead-end. Some sequences were left to be shot, but there was not enough money to complete the filming or begin the post-production. That is when a rough cut of the film was selected to the Film Bazaar Recommends section.
“Film Bazaar became a turning point,” says Vinoth. “At the closing ceremony, we ran into Ram sir. I had always been a fan of his films. Kaattrathu Tamil (2007) came out when I was a teenager working in a garment factory in Tirupur. It had a great impact on me. I remember I’d tried to imitate his hairstyle in that film. That evening in Panjim, I mustered the courage and showed him a trailer of Pebbles. He was impressed, and upon returning to Chennai, he watched the whole film.”
It was Ram who introduced Vinoth to Nayanthara and Vignesh Shivan who would, later, co-produce the film under their home banner Rowdy Pictures. “They watched the film together one evening and readily made an offer to help us complete the film. Suddenly, everything fell into place. Thanks to them, Yuvan Shankar Raja came into the project.”
Before Pebbles, Vinoth made a short film (Subway) and two unfinished shorts in Madurai, his hometown. He also worked as an assistant director in Manjapai (2014, N Ragavan). But what re-shaped his visual sense and his relation with the art are, he says, the years he spent with a theatre group, Manal Magudi, based in Kovilpatti, led by veteran theatre practitioner Murugu Boopathy.
“I moved to the theatre because I wanted to travel,” says Vinoth. “And I did travel a lot with the group, to different parts of the country. Every tour began and ended in the same small venue in Kovilpatti. In those years, I learned the basics of storytelling, lighting and how to compose a scene. I was introduced to magical realism. Most of all, I met people from different backgrounds.”
Vinoth lost his father when he was 10. The death shook his family so much that he had to drop out of school to work in the Madurai market. He would run into a film crew almost every day in Madurai, a popular shooting location for the mainstream Tamil movies. “I had butterflies in my stomach when I saw a cinematographer on a crane for the first time. Cinema seemed like a place of dream and adventure,” he says.
The rural region around Madurai has always been drought-hit. Vinoth grew up witnessing the people of his village migrating to nearby industrial towns in search of a better life. Eventually, at 14, he left the village too, for Tirupur to work in a garment factory. “I have often wondered why we had to live like this, why hadn’t any political party done anything to better our lives,” he says.
From Tirupur, Vinoth moved to Chennai with an ambition to work in the city’s film industry. To stay close to the movie industry, he chose a job at a small-time DVD rental store in Virugambakkam.
“I knew there were filmmakers, actors and technicians living nearby. Often someone would swing by to buy a DVD, and I would give them my resume. I had printed out a bundle,” he laughs.
The job helped him discover the classics, arthouse and parallel cinema. Films of Abbas Kiarostami ﹣Where is My Friend’s Home (1987)﹣ Ritwik Ghatak, Balu Mahendra, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and John Abraham. “On most days, I used to watch three films. That DVD store was my film school.” He cites Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid and French filmmaker Tony Gatlif’s movies as his personal favourites.
The landscape
A still from ‘Pebbles’
Pebbles has a distinct cinematic language ﹣indigenous and unaffected﹣ which unmistakably arises from Vinoth’s relationship with the place and its people. It pervades a strong sense of tactility. The camera movements bend the conventions, creating an indexical association between the images and the landscape.
In the sublime opening shot, the camera observes a bird’s nest swaying in the wind. The sound of the baby bird inside the nest. The fluttering of the mother bird’s wings as she flies in to feed the baby. The shot is the result of a lot of hard work, says Vinoth. “The cinematographer and I camouflaged using branches of trees and waited by the nest for hours for the bird to come and perform this daily ritual. I wanted a perfect first shot which contained the entire film in itself.”
As part of pre-production, the filmmaker visited Arittapatti several times.
“I stayed there for a year. I came across snakes, cows, women carrying pots of water… I kept reworking on the script,” he says. “The weather and the landscape of the region are unforgiving. It can knock down and reshape a person. While shooting the film, the crew members often grew impatient and irritated. Violence or chaos becomes your natural response when you are living there.”
The core of Pebbles, he says, is the hill that Velu (the child) is seen looking at from the bus. “The hill is called Samanar Padukkai. There are ancient caves atop the hill where Jain monks lived many thousand years ago. Inside the cave, you will find a world far removed from the one outside. It is cool and placid. Like the hill which has a cave in its heart, the film is about the women of the region who, like meditating monks, wait for hours by a dwindling stream to collect a pot of water. That minuscule stream symbolises the hope that keeps the village going.”
The actors
A still from ‘Pebbles’
For both the lead actors, Karuththadaiyaan, who plays Ganapathy, and Chellappaandi, who plays Velu, the boy, this is their debut film. Karuththadaiyaan, however, is a seasoned theatre actor.
“I had seen him performing on stage. A wonderful actor! But he wasn’t ready to act in films. Every time I approached him, he flatly refused. It took a lot of time and coercing to bring him to the front of the camera.”
Chellapandi is from a village next to Arittapatti. “Although he had no experience in acting or had seen many movies, he acted without any inhibition, perfecting every shot in the first take. He is a natural talent.”
Vinoth hopes to release the film in theatres across Tamil Nadu.
Does arthouse, experimental films have an audience in Tamil Nadu?
“There is,” says Vinothraj. “Audience isn’t the problem. Distribution is where the problem is.”
If everything goes well, he hopes to release the film by the end of the year. “Film festivals are important. But I want the film to be seen by my people. It is about them, for them.”
Elisabeth Moss, the American actor and producer who recently starred in The Invisible Man, joined the cast of Barry Levinson’s upcoming directorial, Francis And The Godfather, along with actor Oscar Isaac, reported Deadline.
Francis And The Godfather explores the making of 1972 cult film The Godfather.
The classic American crime film The Godfather is the first instalment in The Godfather trilogy, which was directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on the latter’s 1969 bestselling novel of the same name. The film starred Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Richard Castellano, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard Conte, and Diane Keaton. It was produced under Rober Evans’ Paramount Pictures.
The film, based in the 1950s, revolves around an organised crime dynasty and the Corleone family, which is under the patriarch Vito Corleone who is better known as Don Corleone (Marlon Brando). He transfers the control of his “clandestine empire” to his reluctant son Michael Corleone (Pacino), who turns into a ruthless mafia don.
While Isaac will be playing the role of Coppola, Moss will be playing his wife, Eleanor Coppola. Jake Gyllenhaal will be playing the role of Robert Evans.
According to another report by the Deadline, Francis And The Godfather focuses on the conflict between the filmmaker and a studio chief, who desperately needed a hit during the making of The Godfather. During the making of the classic trilogy, Coppola was a 31-year-old who was fixed at convincing Evans and his studio to allow him to shoot in New York city. The original script penned by Puzo was based in contemporary Kansas City.
Another point of the clash was casting Brando as Don Corleone as he had been delivering mostly box office failures then. Brando, however, went on to win several awards in a career spanning over 60 years, including two Emmy Awards.
Levinson will also produce Francis And The Godfather, which is based on Andrew Farotte’s Black List screenplay that has been re-developed with the former.
Echo Lake Entertainment’s Mike Marcus, Doug Mankoff and Andrew Spaulding are producing Francis And The Godfather with Kevin Turen, Jon Levin and Baltimore Pictures’ Jason Sosnoff. The worldwide rights of the film are being handled by Endeavor Content along with FilmNation.
