When you are a struggling filmmaker trying to get your first film made, you invariably meet people who give false hopes and empty promises. Somewhere along you continue to hold on to those promises, in the hope that things will change for the better. The situation is no different in the case of director Thamizh. With over a decade as an assistant and associate director, Thamizh has worked in films such as Pattalam and Biryani. He had written a few commercial scripts and was trying to get them made. “I was trying to use Venkat Prabhu [director of Biryani] as a card but that wasn’t helpful. Even the films I tried pushing did not feel like something I would like doing. That is when I decided to make a film of my taste,” says Thamizh, whose directorial debut Seththumaan releases on SonyLIV this Friday.
As it was a long wait of five years, Thamizh decided to quit films at one point and subsequently started work on Seththumaan with a budget of ₹6 lakh — “I realised no producer would back my film. That is why I went ahead with what I had.”
When the filming commenced, he realised he couldn’t even meet the rental cost of the camera equipment. Thamizh sought the help of filmmaker Pa Ranjith, who, after reading the script, decided to produce the film instead. “Since he is a director himself and politically conscious, he understood what my film was about,” he says.
With his roots in Erode, Thamizh came to Chennai after his graduation. Only while trying to make it as a director did he realise the importance of literature. It now seems apt, for his Seththumaan is based on Tamil writer Perumal Murugan’s short story Varugari. The film explores the relationship of a grandfather and his grandson, while taking an incisive look at the politics of caste and meat.
Thamizh says it wasn’t the politics that caught his attention. What appealed to him was the human emotion, “The last line of Varugari disturbed me a lot. That vari is what prompted me to make Setthumaan,” he adds. The film was well-received at various film festivals including International Film Festival of Kerala and Chennai International Film Festival, where it won an award.
Growing up in his hometown, Thamizh admits to being an average cinemagoer enjoying the commercial films of Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan and Vijayakanth. But it was when he started to follow Balu Mahendra’s television serial Kadhai Neram that he became serious about films. “I am a fan of directors CV Sridhar and Balu Mahendra. Even though they made commercial films, they were different from the usual ones and had an aesthetic quality,” he says, adding, “They broke several formulas and stereotypes. Likewise, I also wanted to make my films as real as possible.”
Published - May 26, 2022 11:56 am IST