There was a time when successful filmmaker K.V. Anand, who was working as a freelance photographer with magazines and periodicals, had applied for jobs at The Hindu and a Delhi-based magazine .
If he had taken that path, his life would have been very different. He finally chose to join cameraman P.C. Sreeram’s team and never looked back.
“Cinematography and photography is my thing. Direction is a temporary detour in my career. I will stop making films when the audience stops appreciating them,” he says.
K.V. Anand’s upcoming film Anegan stars actor Dhanush in four different roles. In an industry where quality and form of the content is decided by distributors and theatre owners, Mr. Anand claims that he tries not to take the audience for granted.
“In all of my films, romance is just a sidetrack. The crux of the movie is a contemporary issue such as water scarcity, smuggling and political corruption. In Anegan , the central conflict is about love. The lovers are torn apart by factors other than caste, class and religious differences. That’s the novelty,” he says.
K.V. Anand claims that a certain journalistic curiosity is what nudges him to infuse substance into the formulaic process of a commercial film. “I have always approached commercial cinema with some purpose. My films could have scenes which people don’t like and simple plotlines, but I try to make sure that there is nothing outrageous that the audience mocks at,” he says.
The film was originally offered to actor Vijay, who, while turning it down due to lack of time, suggested Dhanush’s name. How does he rate Dhanush? “I agreed with Vijay’s suggestion right away. After Kamal Haasan, I believe nobody has convincingly portrayed romance on screen apart from Dhanush. He has all the makings of a great actor: he can pan his eyes over the lens of the camera without ever being conscious of it. I have seen only Mohanlal do that,” he says.
Mr. Anand is excited about the new flock of filmmakers that Tamil cinema is throwing up. “Their films are small, but yet so refreshing. Tamil cinema has undergone massive changes in the last few years. We have actors such as Vijay Sethupathy who have taken Tamil cinema by storm.”
Does he ever envy young filmmakers for the fact that they improvise and experiment because their budgets are small?
“When the budget exceeds 20 crores, you need to provide something for everybody. The narrative becomes polluted with songs and comedy. But then, when the budget is small, it doesn’t reach a large section of the audience. As a filmmaker, that’s more important to me.”
Read the full interview here: Balancing box office formula with substance
