BENGALURU: Many of us were enrolled for classes for various arts during our childhood. And many have pursued it further, while some have left practice midway. Just like Kavitha in the short film, Arangetram. However, she was lucky to have a family who helped her complete her Arangetram. This film also stars several cine and television artistes from Kollywood, including Kausalya Natarajan and Zeeba Ashrin, who play important supporting cast members.
The film starring Savitha Sastry and directed by AK Srikanth, is a tribute to cinema of breezy comedies by stalwarts such as Amol Palekar, Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Chatterjee. “This is a genre that is very different from the usual. In my mind, it’s about telling a story like RK Narayan would, something like Swami and Friends or Malgudi Days. It has the essence of Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Gol Maal that the entire family can watch,” explains Sastry.
The writing of the film is interesting with the main character around whom everyone is rallying, wanting her to do her Arangetram, the first major debut performance. “In Tamil, Arang means stage and etram means to get on stage. The idea is that there is no age limit. In this story, the protagonist’s mother-in-law and daughter are planning her Arangetram,” says Sastry, adding the film was shot in 3-4 days in an apartment in Chennai.
The making of the ‘family entertainment’ was Sastry and Srikanth’s quest for having more such films. “Nowadays, I feel there are a lot of films that are really good, but it is hard to find a film which you can sit with your grandmother and your grandkids to watch. Some of them have darker themes or inappropriate content. Cinema seems to be moving into the real world with a lot of greys, but in this movie, there are no greys,” says Sastry, adding that one can see the closeness of the family in the film. It also extends to the community around them who cares for the little family.
There are many elements like this that Sastry has added from real life. For example, practising dance in the kitchen while no one else is watching. Even the sarees she wears in the film – which are hard to miss – are from her wardrobe. “I had a few simple sarees which go with the character’s personality,” she says.