What does a piece of clothing represent? Is it your age? Your fashion sense? Or your self-expression? In actor Geetha Kailasam’s Angammal, it represents her character’s self-respect. The film, based on Perumal Murugan’s short story, Kodithuni, centres on an old woman, Angammal (Geetha Kailasam), who steadfastly refuses to wear a blouse, even as her son Pavalam, who is about to get married, urges her to change her mind to appease his future in-laws. The film, which has been doing the festival rounds, has won the Best Film award at the New York Indian Film Festival, with Geetha being nominated for her role as Angammal. The award went to Sharmila Tagore for the film, Puratawn. “Past winners of the category included the likes of Sanya Malhotra and Shefali Shah. But seeing my name next to Sharmila Tagore in this year's list of nominees was joyous enough for me,” says Geetha.
Before New York, Angammal was screened at the MAMI Film Festival, Mumbai, and the International Film Festival Kerala. When asked about the importance of awards and festivals, especially for a film like Angammal, Geetha shares, “The market is built in such a way that a film attracts audiences only when big names are attached to it. Even for a film that has been screened at a festival, there are a lot of preconceived notions, where people wonder if they will be bored with the film or if it will actually be enjoyable.” When asked who should take up the mantle of providing support for films like Angammal, Geetha says, “The producers and the distributors need to provide support for artistic films to be released. The theatres can be filled only to a point; beyond that, the audience will always prefer OTT. For theatres to be full, the audience needs to be familiar with the actor’s work.”
Something that sets Angammal apart from a lot of Tamil films is the lead character itself. “In an industry where middle-aged women as lead characters are fewer, this film is important in its representation,” says Geetha, who has built a career where the films are variegated in their stories but mostly feature the actor in the role of a mother. In Angammal, once again, Geetha plays a mother, but the equation is anything but ordinary. "Mothers in films are always pigeon-holed as characters who are always emotional. That stereotype is questioned in Angammal,” signs off Geetha.