there’s a big hatred out there, towards certain people. Like this whole controversy about Ilaiyaraja and AR Rahman, because I’m GRLQJ D ¿OP ZLWK 5DMD VLU , PHDQ VHULRXVO\" Who are you to sit in a room and talk about OHJHQGV OLNH ,ODL\DUDMD DQG $5 5DKPDQ" 7R compare them is really unfair. After a time, I decided that there wasn’t any point in reading these and responding to them. Because these are frustrated, jobless people. And they do all sorts of stuff, sitting in their dark rooms, in front of a computer. It really doesn’t matter. This is a very small community, which reaches out to a small section of people. Internet penetration itself is very low in India. And even among those, there are very few people who actually browse and comment. I mean, how jobless would you have to be to DFWXDOO\ FRPPHQW RQ D WUDLOHU" +RZ PDQ\ times have you or I commented on a trailer ZHœYH VHHQ" ,I ZH VHH VRPHWKLQJ RQOLQH we like it and move on. We don’t sit and comment on it. It’s just not done.
directors. First, we need to establish a banner – and that’s not going to be easy. I mean, WKH ¿UVW WKUHH ¿OPV GLGQœW DFWXDOO\ PDNH much money for us. But we’re trying. We’re DFWXDOO\ FRPLQJ RXW ZLWK WZR ¿OPV WKLV year. Apart from our own Yohan, there will EH WZR RU WKUHH PRUH ¿OPV QH[W \HDU ¹ ,œYH actually asked a couple of big directors to do something for us. (Pause) It’s been ten years in the industry and it’s high time we gave something back to it...
Isn’t there some talk about a TV series with Parthepan? Yes – we’re starting it in a month’s time. We’re doing a series of episodes based on a central character who happens to be a cop. It is set in Chennai and is about crime in the city and how cops handle it. It’s also an emotional story about a cop who is a widower and with a daughter. It’s going to be very interesting. And it’s going to have music by AR Rahman, incidentally. 7KDWÂśV D ÂżUVW LVQÂśW LW" %ULQJLQJ $5 5DKPDQ WR WKH VPDOO VFUHHQ" +RZ GLIÂżFXOW ZDV LW WR manage it? Oh, he was perfectly okay with it. Didn’t take any convincing at all, because he said, ‘We really should improve the quality of programmes on TV. Television is so bad; we must do something to better it’. It will be like the one hour episodes, hopefully Monday to Friday. What’s your journey been like, as a producer? It’s a journey that’s just begun, actually. We know we’ll come around and do much better ÂżOPV +RSHIXOO\ ZHÂśOO PDNH PRUH PRQH\ DQG SXW WKDW EDFN LQ WKH ÂżOPV :H KDYH EHHQ meeting a lot of people. Now that you’ve PDGH ÂżOPV DQG D QDPH IRU \RXUVHOI SHRSOH ZDQW WR PDNH ÂżOPV IRU \RX $OO WKH ELJ GLUHFWRUV ZDQW WR PDNH ÂżOPV IRU WKHPVHOYHV and we want to work with smaller, new
A pr i l 2012 | S o u t h sco p e
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