After successfully cracking the code of international film festivals through his critically acclaimed film, Visaranai , national award winning filmmaker Vetri Maaran spoke in detail about how he negotiated the complicated and highly competitive space of film festivals.
Speaking during an interaction at the Chennai International Film Festival here, Mr. Maaran said that changes in films began happening throughout India after access to foreign films became easier in the early 2000s.
“Primarily, a festival is a platform to sell films that are not meant for the mainstream audience. Cultural exchange is also important aspect of a film festival,” he said, adding, “Festivals also provide a platform for an artiste to make a film without any political or social compromises. Film festivals give less of a platform to mainstream films because they already have a market.” He said that winning awards was a disadvantage for a filmmaker in Tamil Nadu.
A marketing strategy
“Sometime ago, winning an award was taboo. If a director won the national award, then the director’s career was as good as over. But today, it [the award] has become a marketing strategy. That is what we tried with K. Manikandan’s Kaaka Muttai (produced by Vetri Maaran jointly with Dhanush and distributed by Fox Star Studios India) and Visaranai. With both the films, we wanted to explore the festival circuit first and release the film after that,” said Mr. Maaran.
He said that there were many things that needs to be considered before sending a film for festivals.
“In Toronto, the film festival is like a carnival…entire families come to it. Visaranai is not a film for that festival, while Kaaka Muttai will be preferred. Cannes Film Festival prefers political films. We have to target certain festivals based on our films,” he said.
