Neither purely romantic nor completely action based but a different genre with droplets of all required emotions for a regular film is what makes ‘Nellu’. It touches upon the incidents that had taken place in the life of the farmers of Thanjavur in early sixties. This village-based story comes from the banner of Karthik Jai Movies that follows its earlier flick in 2007 ‘Mirugam’. Nel (paddy) and kaalam (period of time) play important roles in the film, which narrates the story of the poor farmers who inhabited the Cauvery Delta region in and around Thanjavur District in the sixties offering an insight into their lifestyle.

From his earlier stint as an assistant director in many television serials, M. Sivasankar goes up the ladder as a film director through his debut venture ‘Nellu’. He confirms that the title blends well with the theme based on the lives of agriculturists and farmers. This film also slides through the caste differences that prevailed those days between the landlords and the farmers. This is enough to spark some interesting action in the storyline. The film runs through the seed-sowing period to the harvesting period. No doubts, a romantic touch is not missed out in the story.

Sathya, Karthik Jaya, Bhagyanjali, Varsha debut in the movie and play important roles.

O. A. K. Sundar, Vasu Vikram and Ranjan play supportive cast. Another unique feature about this film is that 60 new faces are being cast. Senthil Rajan is handling the camera.

SS Kumaran, who made his debut in ‘Poo’, has churned out some pleasant music and fine numbers, some folk based to go with story. All who had gathered to witness the launch of the audio of the film Nellu were greeted by earthen pots full of boiling rice, lovely thoranams and beautiful kolams.

The film is being released as a rich and fitting tribute to the millions of farmers sweating it out, be it in the scorching heat or the flooding rains across the country so that the rest of them enjoy three peaceful meals a day. It’s to wait and watch if ‘Nellu’ being released on 24 December harvests the expected accolades to gel with the efforts of the ‘Nellu’ team and sentiments sown by the director Sivasankar.