An accidental filmmaker, as he calls himself, debutant director Arun Kumar doesn’t have any qualms about admitting that he always wanted to be an engineer. “I never aspired to be in films. I studied and worked only towards my goal of becoming an engineer,” he says.
But, the monotony of the profession drove him to explore other options and he stumbled on to filmmaking. “I knew nothing about making films. Still, when I was looking for an alternative job after quitting my job, I chose films. I even joined a few ad filmmakers in the process, but I never got to witness the process of production,” he says.
With many setbacks, including a rejection from Nalaiya Iyakkunar, a show for aspiring filmmakers, Arun worked relentlessly to make a mark.
“My first entry to Nalaiya Iyakkunar was rejected. I had to learn from my mistakes and in the process watched a lot of films to learn,” he adds.
Pannaiyarum Padminiyum was not the first choice for the young filmmaker, who shot to fame after winning Nalaiya Iyakkunar for his story based on a rustic theme.
“I was struggling hard with another story in hand. I continued working on it for a while, till I realised I was stretching it needlessly to make it a full-length feature film. Then I decided to work on my other short film Pannaiyarum Padminiyum,” he says.
The Madurai-born filmmaker says the flick is entirely a figment of his imagination. “Somewhere in my mind I had images of a car standing under a tree and vivid memories of using my neighbour’s phone back in my hometown when I was a kid. I replaced the phone with the car and the story was built around it,” he says.
Pegged on a landlord’s love for his vintage car, the film has a few elements that weren’t present in the short film. After finalising on the story, it wasn’t hard for him to convince producer M R Ganesh or the lead actor Vijay Sethupathi.
“There was a subtle heroism in the film and I wanted the actor to understand that without me having to convince him. Vijay seemed very positive about his role as soon as I narrated the script to him. The last part to be finalised was the female lead and it took a while for me to decide on it and finally Ishwarya was brought on board,” he says.
The comedy film with a heavy dose of emotion joins the long line-up of wacky flicks that have become the flavour in K-town.
Arun concedes that he has received immense confidence from the success of Kadhalil Sodhapuvadhu Yeppadi directed by Balaji Mohan, who took a similar route of making his highly successful short film into a feature film.
With the release of the film, he only hopes he doesn’t disappoint anyone. “Those who wish to make it big in films taking the short film route, as I did, shouldn’t be affected by the outcome of this movie. I don’t want to fail to meet the expectations of Vijay’s fans either,” he adds.
A great admirer of works by Bala, Balu Mahendra, Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Majid Majidi and Alfred Hitchcock, Arun believes in tough competition. “It is the competition from several young filmmakers that will feed our creativity in the long run. “The young brigade of filmmakers may not last for long. It needs to keep changing otherwise it will become stagnant,” he adds.