Director Srikantan, a former student of legendary director Balu Mahendra’s prestigious film institute, Cinema Pattarai, is making his directorial debut with a dark comedy crime thriller titled Thappu Thanda. “The first half of the film will be a dark comedy, while the second half will deal with a crime. The script will focus on three different stories,” Srikantan begins. The film stars newcomers Sathya, Shweta Gai and Udhay in the lead roles.
“Thappu Thanda will speak about the ‘cash for votes’ trend and what happens when a group of robbers loot the money that is meant for bribing during election. I had to understand and do a lot of research on how politicians dispense money ahead of an election,” he says, adding, “I took nearly eight months to complete the script and the film has been shot entirely in Chennai. We shot a romantic song in Vagamon as well.”
Thappu Thanda’s cast includes Mime Gopi as the antagonist, John Vijay (who runs an institute for robbers) and Ajay Ghosh of Visaranai fame (as a cop).
Srikantan has 10 short-films to his credit and he shares his rendezvous with Balu Mahendra. “I got the admission in Cinema Pattarai through my short-film Identity. Balu Mahendra sir saw it and immediately took me in. During the course, we had to analyse a film and present it to him and the class. I thought it would be nice to have such an interactive session (with robbers) in my film and added it as part of the script,” he shares.
Produced by Clapboard Production, composer Naren Balakumar, cinematographer Vinod Bharati, editor Raja Sethupathi and art director Shiva Shankar form the technical team of Thappu Thanda.
