DIRECTOR BRAMMA G INTERVIEW

“Pirammanathan is my name… People used to call me Bramma, because they found Pirammanathan too hard to pronounce. I liked that people called me Bramma! I liked the name… It had a ring to it”

It surely has a ring to it and add a National Award to his credit for his maiden creation, it just feels apt. With the National Award Winning Kuttram Kadithal finding its release this weekend, director Bramma gets into an open conversation with Sudharshan Giridhar. Excerpts:

I was an active NSS participant in my college and that’s when I was exposed to street plays. That introduced me to a new tool to tell stories. I was so addicted to it that I started getting into a lot of competitions and even won a few major ones. Those laurels acted as an impetus to continue doing good work. I, along with a friend of mine, went on to start our own organization called Proscenium theater and creative solutions.

We started training and performing plays for colleges, schools, corporates and NGOs through this organization. 

As far as I know, there’s nothing experimental about the film, except that it has got a bunch of new actors.

Once Christy and I were done with the film, we needed another partner, preferably a big player in the industry, so that the film gets a wider release. We approached a lot of people and J Satish Kumar was the one, who showed a lot of interest in the film. In fact, it was he who thought the film has a lot of potential to win awards. He came up with the strategy to send the film to festivals and awards and later release the film.

We all started believing in the strategy when the film was selected as the only Tamil entry in the Indian Panorama. 

Once the film started winning laurels in festivals, I started establishing contacts with all the jury members of each festivals. I sincerely wanted to know why my film was being appreciated. I spoke to a lot of them and I’ll share two instances.

Four months after Indian Panorama, I managed to get in touch with Ms Archana (Veteran Actress). After the National Awards, I asked the same question to Mr. Bharathiraja. Both felt that Kuttram Kadithal was genuine and unadulterated. They were all moved by the picture and in fact Ms Archana felt that had Mr. Balumahendra been still there, he would have expressed his happiness over the film by hugging the whole team. 

I want to attempt all kind of genres. I want to try comedy, satire, suspense, thrillers… The one thing that will be common in all my films is that each one will have a purpose. I’ll not do something for the sake of doing it. Money will not drive me to do a film but the story itself.

Most importantly, my films must reflect my culture. I feel there are a plenty of untold stories on our Tamil culture and language.

To me, cinema is a medium that must be handled with utmost responsibility. 

I’d go with Happy… we have become a gang. We are like minded filmmakers, who give utmost importance to the content. 

I’m planning a political thriller. Let’s see how it pans out.