Last year, film-maker Santhosh Gopal, who is also movie ‘consultant’, made a film around the jallikattu protests titled Jallikattu (8-23). Even as the movie, which explores the politics behind the jallikattu ban through a fictional storyline, awaits release, he has started work on his next film based on the Salem-Chennai eight-lane greenfield project.
Speaking about his initial experience of documenting the protests on the ground — he first covered the agitations in Aroor, Tiruvannamalai, Salem and Dharmapuri — Mr. Gopal said: “It is difficult to predict where it [protest or the project] was going. I just took my camera and started shooting the government officials surveying the area for the project and placing the markers with the help of GPS. I also documented the people’s opposition to it, their reasons for doing so, the police trying to end the protests and so on. Slowly, I expanded the crew — I had a second unit following developments in other areas.”
The movie on the green corridor project would be similar in form to his earlier work on jallikattu: a fictional story would wrap the real-life protests, says the film-maker, who was previously running one of the most popular video stores in Chennai.
After 10 days of shooting the protests, he decided to make a film and name it Pasumai Vazhi Salai .
“The characters in the film are based on real people. Practical issues exist for the farmers. For instance, what happens to farmers locked in a dispute over land? It is complex and the film features one such dispute and real-footage will form a significant part of the film,” he says.
