Had Visaranai (2016) been in the nominations for Best Foreign Film category, the 89th Academy Awards would have had more viewing interest for me. But that Vetrimaran’s grippy police-enquiry tale made it even this far is a matter of immense pride for us Tamil folks. It also set a precedent last year for content-driven films which impact the box-office sans a big budget or star-cast. Manikandan of Kakka Muttai (2015) fame repeated his ‘small-film-magic’ with a saleable Vijay Sethupathi in Aandavan Kattalai (2016), which was easily the most liked film of 2016. December 2016 saw a thriller which completed a 50-day run on February 16, 2017. D-16 or Dhuruvangal-16 written and directed by Karthik Naren is the most applauded, most recommended and what’s even better is that it is the most profitable film for its producers.
D-16 with its strong ‘think-along-with-me’ screenplay displayed a sense of direction least expected from a newcomer. Karthik Naren joins the league of first-time directors like Nalan (Soodhu Kavvum, 2013), Karthik Subburaj (Pizza, 2012), Arunkumar (Pannaiyarum Padminiyum, 2014) and Thyagarajan Kumararaja (Aaranyakandam, 2010) who had no previous experience in cinema and whose films garnered both critical and commercial acclaim. These films also didn’t have saleable heroes per se on whose name the film could be sold. Hence the investing producer became the sole guardian of the debutant director’s labour of love.
A recent talk by writer-director Anurag Kashyap threw open this line of thought, “Nobody owes it to you to make your film - you owe it to yourself.” Finding ways and means to make that impactful first film seems relatively easy today than it was say a decade ago! A reality show called Naalaiya Iyakkunar (The Director of Tomorrow) on Kalaignar TV with its first set of judges in Film Critic Madhan and director Pratap Pothen opened vistas for talents like Nalan, Karthik Subburaj, Arunkumar and Balaji Mohan to present their stories. Actors like Bobby Simha and Vijay Sethupathi emerged as strong male leads with the latter outshining many an established hero currently. With encouragement from discerning judges and a platform to showcase their short films, a slew of new writers and directors came out shining bright with a passion for good cinema.
Earlier the only way one could become a filmmaker was to work with an established director. It is a strange belief which is broken firmly now with short films on YouTube. It is strange because a director like Mani Ratnam became a filmmaker without having worked as an assistant to anyone! Ditto for K Balachander who used to write plays for theatre and screenplays for other actors (MGR - Deivathaai, 1964) before he became a writer-director himself. The success of D-16 has paved the way for more such films as producers look for those budget-friendly ventures which will also rake-in the moolah.
Karthik Naren (in photo with Gautham Menon) announced the second of his thriller-trilogy Naragasooran with Arvind Swami in the lead and Gautham Menon, as producer.
Must say, these are interesting times at the movies.