Born in Gandhigramam and educated in filmmaking at Toronto, Mithran Maharajan experimented with short films, after the Canadian Government funded his Chimera which was screened at the First Cut Film Festival (2004). After he was chosen to represent Tamil Nadu at the Independence Day celebrations and performed in a dance show at Dundas Square in downtown Toronto in 2005, Mithran started writing and directing a weekly ethnic series, Aaram, for Omni Television, Toronto. “I was later introduced to Arun Vaidiyanathan ( Achamundu Achamundu ) whose influence made me direct more shorts. Along with my wife Dhanalakshmi Raju Srinivasan, I started Thoughts Laboratory and won five awards back to back, between 2011 and 2012. Tharunam , the story of a little boy who learns a trick from his grandpa to escape bullies; Ukkiya Jeevan , about an aborted soul coming back to life to take revenge on her parents; and Manithan , projecting two sides of a murder, which stirred racial tension between India and Australia, got me the awards for Best Film. Oru Kanam Oru Yugam got me the award for Best Direction. For Pollavinayen , a story about a group of kids who go missing in small town New Jersey, I got the award for Best Special Effects. All of these were recently telecast in the Nalaya Iyakunar show on Kalaignar TV. I am interested in bringing new flavours to Indian cinema and have plans for a full length feature film in Tamil, as well as some sitcoms,” says Mithran.
Eventful holiday
New face Rajesh and Swathi ( Rattinam ) are the lead actors in director C. Balasubramaniyan’s upcoming film Arasu Vidumurai . “A love story with an action-oriented screenplay, the film revolves around an uneducated youth and a studious girl. While they are in a love relationship, an incident takes place on a government holiday which has a tremendous bearing on their lives,” says Balasubramaniyan, without revealing much of the plot. This is his second film after Kaadhalukku Maranamillai .
Hot from the oven
Karthik Subburaj, director of Pizza , explains why he has chosen this unusual title for his upcoming Tamil film: “Because, the hero, played by Vijay Sethupathi, is a pizza delivery boy. It is a romantic thriller with Ramya Nambisan as the heroine.” Vijay Sethupathi has earlier acted in Thenmerku Paruvakkatru . Pizza is Karthik’s first full length film; he has a series of short films to his credit. “Post production work is on and the film will hit the screens during August-September. Pizza has two songs by Santosh Narayanan,” informs Karthik.
Love and its angles
Are we running out of names for films or getting greedy? Biriyani, Pizza and now Samosa ! Yokesh Krishna, in-charge of promotion of the telefilm Samosa , explains, “It is a triangular love story in the rom-com genre, written and directed by Jayakanth Pradeep. Here love blossoms between strangers and the storyline has enough twists and turns to keep the audience engrossed. Though a telefilm, it has enough potential to be turned into a full-length feature like Kadhalil Sodappuvadhu Eppadi . Some producers are already showing interest in the project, but we will wait for the official release of the telefilm at the AVM Preview Theatre during the second week of August.”
