Reporting by Niveda Manohar; Photos by Dani Charles. Photos from the audio launch are below the report.
Vil Ambu‘s audio launch event began much later than the scheduled time. However, a few funny exchanges between the host Harish Uthaman and actor Soori aka Mr. Funny Bones, instantly cheered up the crowd and lightened up the ambience. Suseenthiran, the film’s producer, was beaming with pride as he invited the long line of guests onto the stage. And the loudest cheer was reserved for director Bharathiraja.
Vil Ambu (Bow and Arrow), written and directed by Ramesh Subramaniam, is about two youngsters who lead contrasting lives, and how their paths cross one day. Harish Kalyan and Sri play the main leads, while Srushti Dange, Samskruti, Chandini and Yogi Babu play supporting characters. Two trailers of the film, and a few songs from the album were played on the huge screen at Sathyam Cinemas.
Every guest who spoke at the event, had something to say about Suseenthiran and his readiness to help the people around him. Lyricist Vairamuthu compared him to a giant banyan tree that helps other trees and plants grow around it. Ramesh, the film’s director, is apparently, Suseenthiran’s long-time friend.
Vairamuthu also congratulated the lyricists for penning some very youthful, yet poetic songs.
Veteran director Bharathiraja opened his speech with the line “En iniya Tamil perumakkale”, in his trademark baritone. In his casual and honest speech, the director said that the young technicians of today were making the kind of interesting films the people from his generation couldn’t even imagine. “I had to accept Suseenthiran’s invitation to this event as he is the one who made an actor out of me”, said Bharathiraja. “Attending events as this, and being among the youth, especially ‘virgins like GV Prakash’, makes me feel young”, the master film maker commented.
The ‘virgin’ of the moment, GV Prakash, was welcomed to the stage with hoots and whistles from the gallery. He opened his speech with the hit line from his recent film Trisha Illana Nayanthara– “Vur-gin pasanga saabam ungala summa vidadhu di” to more hoots and whistles. The musician-actor said he was happy to be associated with Vil Ambu, especially as the film’s music director Navin (formerly known as Arrora) was his childhood friend. GV also revealed that as a child, he was intimidated by Navin as the latter would win all the music competitions.
Harish Kalyan, one of the lead actors in the film, said that he thoroughly enjoyed working in the film, and added that his co-star Sri had become one of his close buddies during the shoot. Sri kept his speech short, and promised that he would talk much more at the success meet of the film. Pretty confident, he seemed.
T Siva from the Producers Council used the occasion to clarify, yet again, on the much-talked-about publicity regulation decision take by the council, which many producers and film makers find unfair. Citing Trisha Illana Nayanthara, which followed these regulations and still made a profit of over 12 crores, Siva said. “If Malayalam and Telugu film industries can thrive on publicity costs of lesser than 75 lakhs, why are we forced to spend over 3 crore for the publicity of a single film?” He assured that the regulation would bring about a good change in the industry.
