When Madhumita started working on the script of her third film, she wrote a story about two friends. The parents of the protagonist played important roles in her storyline.
It was at this point in time that she happened to watch Mithunam , a Telugu film about an elderly couple waiting for their grandchildren, who had settled abroad, to return.
“I loved it,” she recalls, “There were just two characters, but it was portrayed so beautifully.”
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It impressed her so much that she changed her own script. She killed the parents of the protagonist – in the script, of course – and gave him grandparents. And roped in singer-actor S.P. Balasubrahmanyam and Lakshmi, who played the elderly couple in the Telugu film, to play the grandparents.
The storyline of her upcoming release Moone Moonu Varthai (MMV) , however, is not entirely about that. It’s about two friends who stumble upon a quirky business idea.
“I like to call it a ‘bromantic comedy’,” she says, ”The friendship between the two male leads (played by Arjun Chidambaram and Venkatesh Harinathan) is the basis of the film. The scenes and screenplay revolve around that.”
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Madhumita has two films in Kollywood to her credit – Vallamai Tharayo and Kola Kolaya Mundhirika . MMV is her first bilingual; it has been simultaneously shot in Tamil and Telugu. “For economic reasons,” as she puts it.
Her growth as a filmmaker has been thanks to an interesting childhood; she was born in Chennai, grew up in Indonesia, went to college in Singapore and did her masters in Los Angeles. And it was during her masters that she got some international exposure – she even interned on the sets of Pirates of the Caribbean – that’s helping her today. “Working on short films abroad taught me one important thing — not to lose my cool. The first thing they teach there is that “things will go wrong; there’s no point in getting angry.” I try to keep that in mind while working on my films,” she smiles. Unlike some other directors, Madhumita doesn’t believe in enacting scenes for her actors. “I just give them a rough framework. I believe that their individuality should come through in the characters,” she states.
That’s exactly what has come through in the characters of SPB and Lakshmi, who’re reportedly teaming up on screen for the first time in Tamil cinema. “Their cooperation helped me a lot,” she gushes, “They were perfect to play the roles of Malini and Krishnan.”
Wait a minute; wasn’t that the names of Suriya and Simran in Vaaranam Aayiram ? “Yes, it was. I love that film and have worked with its director Gautham Menon sir. So, this is like a tribute.”