The Zing at Osian’s Cinefan : AK, Ayesha, Karthi & Alu Chat… – Part 1 (with 28 pics)
Never been a fan of the city….Delhi. They say big roads and big house…what’s the use if you cannot get out on it and of it unless you have a vehicle of your own. Hate the rick guys….got into fights this time too. The past ten days were split between abusing them in chaste Tamil, watching some path breaking cinema….meeting my HERO “Paruthiveeran” and meeting up with some of the brightest minds who are going to hit Indian cinema like a tornado in a few months to come. Just came back a few hours ago.
It all started when Ayesha Mohan [I call her Ayesha Kauffman these days], the lead of Gulal wanting Anurag Kashyap to discuss her script. She was to leave for Delhi and so was Anurag in a couple of days and it was decided it will be done there. We …i.e Tani [AK’s AD] and Me were there too and Ayesha all of a sudden asked us if we would like to join her in her script discussion in Delhi and visit Cinefan too. And we were there in Delhi within 48 hours. Tani, Anubhuti and me. That’s how things move with Ayesha around….she is the tornado I was talking about.
It was the 20th of July and I was turning an awful number….millimeters closer to 30 and it was killing me. We landed there. Anubhuti had a surprise for me. She had called her friends from Delhi and had asked them to arrange a cake for me. Was surprised…touched….had a small celebration at a Barista there as we waited to get in touch with AK senior…..he was busy with Jury duty and was unreachable [Since Ayesha now is AK too.]. Finally we managed to meet him at the Taj where he was put up. He came to know it was my birthday and threw a party for me. [Thank you so much Sir] Had a blast….initially it was at a noisy pub at the Taj then the action and the booze shifted to his room. Ayesha was there too and turned host. We were there to discuss her film as well….remember. As the booze went in she put across her concept. The 3 cans of beer I had just hit me like 20. What a mother-mind-fucking-blowing-fanta-fucking-fabulous concept. This is what she wanted us to discuss…..what the fuck do we discuss…this was something else….were blown away….Last night we were all awake till we left for Bombay in the afternoon…..not slept since. The script has reached new levels. We have gone crazy discussing her film for the past 3-4 days…her characters and her film have taken every gray cell space [whatever they are]…..It’s one of the best I have heard till date. How I wish you people could know….but will have to wait…OK now….let Ayesha not hog all post space…there will be a lot more on her in days to come….there was more to Delhi and then there was Cinefan and …….there was…..
Meeting Paruthiveeran
Was waiting browsing thru the list of film for the day….my eyes just happen to catch someone pass. Was it Karthi…Paruthiveeran the film I have been raving about and bugging everybody to watch….was that him….I ran and confirmed. Introduced myself with that “and am a big fan and a potential stalker” look…He was calm….thanked me for the good wishes and walked ahead. I ran after him….”Karthi can you meet me for PFC??” …blah blah….”……Karthi “Sure…give me a call”
That night I got a call from AK Sr.
AK – tu Karthi ko mila!!??
VB – Kartik to Bombay mein hai na ?? [I thought appna KK]
AK – Abe Karthi…Paruthiveeran…
VB – Oh yes….my God!!!! [Gushed like a Delhi girl seeing SRK]
Karthi who is the son of Sivakumar one of the most respected human beings and actor in the Tamil film Industry and the brother of Surya….a Superstar and a crazy down south. Karthi did his engineering from Chennai and then his MS from the US. He had a tough time getting into the film industry as so did his brother before he made it big. Both bothers are well educated and could have made it big anywhere …..Karthi while studying in the US took up a part time job as a Graphics Designer. It was decided then that he wanted to be in the creative field. Karthi was actually offered a role in Mani Ratnam’s Aayitha Ezhuthu the role which was finally played by Siddharth. Mani Sir wanted someone who looked like Surya’s younger brother who played Michele. [Ajay Devgan’s role in Yuva]. He though then who better then Surya’s younger brother. Mani Sir by then had not seen Karthi…and in his own words when he saw a rather hugely built Karthi he thought otherwise. But Karthi had other plans. He wanted to direct and still does feel Direction maybe his call someday…..
He began assisting Mani Sir. He admitted Mani Sir is indeed one of the brightest minds to work with but in the same breath a very tough man to work with. He just pushes one to the limit. The AD should be the one with the highest motivation on the sets…maybe even more than the director himself….pushing all fronts with all his might. Karthi mentioned how Mani Sir executed a small scene ….like say a slap with such detail. He would say how the slap should be shot to achieve the desired impact on the audience. First the cue to the action to come and then the impact on the person hit. Karthi mentioned that’s how the action in 300 looked so impact full….it followed the same principal….cue and impact.
Mani Sir did let Karthi know that there will be films offered to him and that he should go for it. There were a few but maybe did not materialize…..and then came Ameer, A National Award winner for his earlier “Raam” and a former AD of the explosive Bala [Sethu, Nanda, PIthamagan and now with the forthcoming “Naan Kadavul”] approached Karthi with Paruthiveeran. Ameer had lived with this film for a long long time.
As they shot for the still of the film Karthi knew that this was big…this was going to be path breaking. I still vividly remember the pooja/mahurat shown on Sun TV and being excited about the film. The stills itself made an impact.
Here I need to mention the shy and reserved Gnanavelraja the producer of Paruthiveeran. All of 29 and already produced 2 films. The path breaking Paruthiveeran and the breezy romantic “Sillindru Oru Kadal” starring Surya. Gnanavel and Karthi have been school mates.
While others at the festivals with films in the competition are usually expected to do PR for their films Karthi and Gnanavel hanged out with us. That’s how chilled out they were. The talks continued as we went out for lunch. There were 4 of us Karthi, Gnanavel, Tani and Me. All 4 squeezed into an auto and went restaurant hunting. This was the only time probably I did not abuse the rick guys in spite of all the heavy duty Tamil ammunition I stayed polite. This was some ride.
15 takes for every shot was like a routine affair. Karthi got nostalgic. On the first few days Ameer was just not happy with what was happening. Karthi and Priyamani were giving their best….but somehow not able to see that happiness on the director’s face. It was almost like one looses confidence in oneself he says. Like an “ok” take seemed more of a chance….luck than ones hard work. But then that’s how demanding Ameer was and would not compromise even an inch in his vision. It took some time to get into the skin…. The results are there to see. Karthi’s first film and it looks like he has been acting in his 10th. A virtual crazy down south now. Gnanavel did show me some of the videos he took of Karthi’s visit to cinema halls. The cheering and the adulation needs to be seen to be believed….and this was just his first film. Priyamani I feel is one of the best actresses in India. She is fabulous. She is mind-blowing. The outdoors of Paruthiveeran was painstakingly shot with only natural light. Each time there was cloud-cover the entire unit came to a standstill. They had to be extremely careful about the continuity and to just get that right the entire unit would wait for hours and sometime even a few days. That’s how hard these people have toiled.
Karthi is doing a film with Linguswamy next and with one more exciting director down south. Was cheering the loudest when Paruthiveeran was declared the winner for the Best Indian Film. Had literally dragged Ayesha and her friends in Delhi including her mom and sister to watch a Tamil film. Was worried that all my extra excitement and hype might dampen their experience. The last day of the festival screened the winners. The festival closed on a grand note for me. Ayesha’s mom just looked at me and said….”I have nothing to say about the film…..am speechless”. She had never seen anything like this before. Karthi……”Veera”…..you rocked…..keep up the great work…..
My trip to Delhi was made meeting these 2. Ayesha [and a special mention Keshav and Max who are musicians…amazing original stuff hey churned out….superb…might be unknowns now…but..!!?? who knows] and Karthi…..
One an amazing mind and the other …..well I am just a star-struck fan of his….
Coming soon – Discovering Kim Ki Duk and some other amazing films I saw at the festival…
Hana, The Case, Bird Cage Inn [Kim Ki Duk], Time [Kim Ki Duk], Making Of: Days Of Glory, Battle of Algiers, Ploy
PHOTO ALBUM (tip: Click on any of the thumbnails below to see the enlarged image. Move your mouse to the left or right “over” the enlarged image and click, to move back or forth in the album.)
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Vasan… bhai, u rock!!!
Awesome post dude… still taking it in…
Oz… picture plugin is cool… grt job!
VB, guru d ke saath rehke tum bhi guru aadmi nikle ho yaar. Envy you.
Oz, you rock! Thanks for the superb presentation. Worth the wait!
VB, excellent coverage. Still havent got hold of paruthiveeran arrrghhh….
vb..isse accha bday present kya milega? ( what better bday gift than this)….waiting for part deux
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Last movie watched : Inside Deep Throat: Documentary 2/5
On to Parzania now
Shabbash Vasan… bohot achche… bohot achche… keep it up!!!
teen baar padhna pada.. saala kept getting distracted by the vada pavs and aloo chat.. maza aa gaya VB =D> IBN mein job dhoond le
[had to read 3 times.. too good.. find a job at IBN]
maza aagaya vasan, waiting for second one^:)^^:)^^:)^^:)^^:)^^:)^
Awesome post Vasan bhai, wonderful coverage. Can’t wait to see all the movies you’ve mentioned and nice picture viewing plugin. Waiting for your second post Osians.
Guru made our life easy by giving us Delegate passes…we could walk in anywhere..anytime…wanted to meet Rajat Kapoor but he was mobbed like hell by the press and was subjected to some seriously FUCK ALL questions….they left after that.But just managed to confirm with him…he did not make this within one crore….it was a much bigger film.Happy for his team.
The fest was Vinay and Ranveer Festival – Manorama, Khosla Ka Ghosla, Mithya…
Manorama-six feet under, I loved the making….but the only spoiler was that it was heavily taken from “Chinatown” directed by Roman Polanski. Vinay here is in Top Form again. The landscape captured is FAB.
^:)^^:)^^:)^^:)^^:)^^:)^^:)^^:)^^:)^
Im so jealous u guys had a gala time …
Belated happy birthday dude …. U rock .. so do the pics :-)
By the way .. anurag’s new look reminds me of KK’s look from Paanch ….
Wah Wah Wahsan! waiting for more.
Autoriksa and bus ka victim main bhi tha vasan bhai
Vasan!
Great coverage!!!
Will Karthee get a natl award for his film?
If he does then it will be a double for his family.
appa sivakumar got it for his tremendous “Marupakkam”.
BTW, Did you ask Karthee abt his next venture “Aayirathil Oruvan” by Sevaraghavan (another path breaking film director – go grab 7G Rainbow colony and Pudhu pettai)?
wow wow wow!!! =d>
super coverage… High expectations from the next one…
and Belated Happy D’day (oops B’day ;) )
spending almost 14 hours daily at the festival, I wanted to write a post on it myself. But I am afraid I wouldn’t have been able to do such a great job.
[admin note: please email editors this is not the place to ask technical questions]
Vasan anna, belated birthday wishes..loved the post!
liked the snails pic very much..Is it Rajat Kapoor on the extreme left of the Mithiya team? He is looking huge compared to the others team members!
THANKS FOR YOUR WISHES EVERYONE……my first one celebrated on a PUBLIC FORUM….feel special….thats for making me feel so…
Manjeet, yes it is Rajat Kapoor and he is very tall.
rbehemoth – sorry da could not meet you. could have tried harder now i feel….anyways surely will someday.
Pankaj – There was a lot more to the festival but some events just make your trip and the ones I listed made mine…hence just wrote about that…
V.P.Jaiganesh – Yah Karthi is doing Selvaraghavan’s film but too early to talk so have no dope on it….
Atray – great to see you there
WB – Guru D ke chartachaya mein to patthar bhi sona banjata hai…..he is a great influence.
Thanks Surya, Smriti, Striker[enjoy your last few days of bliss!!!
], ravptor , varun, Vivek and OM bhai…..and fucker Karthik Krishnan you should have been there….you would have loved it…
Vasan belated happy birthday from me too. wish I knew who u were would have met up as I was also there… from the disastrous Magic show at the first day till the 25 th.
thanks Onir for your wishes……am surprised how come i missed you :(
Hey Wasan..(felt like doing KK once)…nice post. though cud not figure out much of ur simbly south things…as to who,what. but it was nice read.
n the most intersting pic…cooling our heels…moi my!! hav u cut out the post roll there :-?;) n ayesha,ayesha,ayesha….who the huck is ayesha…as i write this can hear the jassi song in background…dil le gayee kudi…ok that was corny. but its happening. what to do. anyway vasan why dont u ask that bala to join pfc!! n plz dont kill me for this comment.
Vasan,
Belated birthday greetings.
Just one fact I want to add. Gnanavel is Karthi’s cousin; so it is no wonder he was able to make films starring Surya and Karthi.
@Vasan arrey all fine…
hope 2 meet you some other time…
also tried calling but your fone always came “out of service for operational reasons…”
Phoenixnu just that was delighted to see someone come up with mindblowing original ideas…hence was excited to share it with you people….and someday she will do some great stuff and moi can feel proud that I broke the news here on PFC….
about Bala the director…..he does have a website and i think writes on it too….
http://www.directorbala.com/home.html
Vasan.
Thamizh websites are going crazy with news of feud between Karthee, Gnanavel and Ameer.
Take a look at this link.
http://thatstamil.oneindia.in/specials/cinema/specials/ameer_070801.html
I have given the link because it is in thamizh and I thought vasan could read and provide a better translation of the content.
Thanks for posting the link of Bala, my favourite director. None in Thamizh film industry have been able to portray the darker side of human mind with such beauty.
hey what did you think of still life? And why is it a problem if manorama is broadly based on chinatown. It even tributes the movie no in the scene when abhay deol watches the movie on tv.
Here is one more link that talks about how Ameer is miffed
http://sify.com/movies/tamil/fullstory.php?id=14503777
curioser and curioser.
Great post. Paruthiveeran is definitely a different experience. Especially, the second half. Tamil cinema has never looked so real. It is a brilliant experiment, which Tamil Nadu accepted gleefully. But the movie could have been cut short by at least 20 minutes. Yet, it remains a classic. Veyil also was a visual treat.
Talking about experiments, I have to mention about Kim Ki-duk.(You mentioned about him). Perhaps, Kim is the most-underrated South Korean film director is India, and in many parts of Asia. Only Europe understood the master director. I have seen many of his masterpieces like Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
anuj – i know people raved about stilllife…but i could not get it….great premise…but the pace was too too too too slow for me….personal opinion….
the priyamani fall out thing is so untrue……Karthi took the award and applauded her effort and personally told me he was happy that the film got these awards and he himself not getting the best actor did not affect him…he is very very very happy for his co-star.
What about Kaul’s ’signature’ film at Osian’s
Vasan Bala,
It’s quite obviously media mischief (in its messy interpretation of her words). No actress is going to fall out with her co-star (or, producer) because the director had a problem with the latter.
All she would have said was what’s quoted in the news item: “All credit goes to Ameer sir. He had total faith in me and also went out of the way to ensure that I dub in my own voice for the film, which eventually clinched the award for me.”
Rest is media’s invention.
Weel, I loves the new set of Indian films I saw at Osian’s Cinefan. I have been attending it religiously as its the only place left that gives an escape from the News channel culture of Delhi. I feel what it started post Satya with Anurag Kashyap, Vishal Bharrdwaj et all as a culture in Mumbai has started showing result. Nomatter it took bloody 8 years or so. I loved the makiing of Manorama Six feet under, Frozen, Vanaja. Good, bad, avarge, but never the less private funding. Hats up to Ramesh, Navdeep, Raman and Vishwnathan for being able to convince producers.
I loves Osina’s for this and beyond…..
Shankhajeet
keep goin macha…mere life mein to ek hi aas hai..2 meet koundamani!
Hey r u Vasan from Matunga????????
- Aditya, yes he is
Vasan tu famous ho gaya baap (Hinglish: Vasan, you famous go becoming dad)
very good one……..
poora padha maine
:d