Raising the ordinary to extraordinary
BENGALURU: How often do we find special moments in the mundane? Nasir, a 2020-based Tamil drama, revolves around a middle-aged apparel shop worker who lives a content life. Mostly confined to a crowded ghetto, his aspirations are nothing extraordinary. Over the course of a single day, he shows how love and compassion triumph any bigotry and division.
Having been screened at various film festivals, the movie was screened in Bengaluru for the first time at the Bangalore International Centre. The Tamil movie, which has English subtitles, has Valavane Koumarane playing the title role and actor Sudha Ranganathan and Taj Sabari also playing important roles
Along with the screening, the movie’s director Arun Karthick was in conversation with screenwriter and producer Thani Mudaliar. The movie premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2020 where it won a prize in the ‘Asian Film’ category. “It started its journey in 2020 and got selected to be part of the Bangalore International Film Festival 2021. But owing to the pandemic, things didn’t go as planned. This year the festival was on the list but films from last year could not be carried forward,” says Mudaliar.
The movie premiered in Bengaluru in collaboration with LeftBank Film Society, of which Mudaliar is a part of. Mudaliar, who has been a co-writer for Anurag Kashyap’s Bombay Velvet and Zubaan, says they want to do good films even if it does not cater to commercial success.
“It is a film that has never been shown in Bengaluru. These were more than enough reasons to bring it here,” says Mudaliar, adding that the movie is about finding extraordinary moments in ordinary goings-on.