Gen Y filmmaker Karthik Subbaraj, who gave path-breaking movies like Pizza and Jigardhanda, is back with his second anthology series titled Aviyal. A brainchild of Karthik, he says that the response he garnered for his first edition Bench Talkies, prompted him to come out with the next anthology — “An anthology is a collection of works from various filmmakers. Bench Talkies, which had six independent films, had a limited release. But, we are planning to release Aviyal in 70 screens across TN, 30 in Kerala and 10 theaters in the US. It will have five fun-filled stories directed by Alphonse Puthren of Premam fame, Shammeer Sultan, Mohit Mehra, Lokesh Kanagaraj and Guru Smaran.”
About the genre, he says, “It’s all black humour, and each film will have its own share of weirdness, but will be enjoyable!” The cast is predominantly newcomers, except Bobby Simha and Nivin Pauly who are featured in Alphonse’s earlier films. “Puthren’s film is about a gangster who chases a normal guy and when they meet at one point, it is his room. What happens in the room forms the quirky comedy. We are introducing a bunch of new talents — Rohit, Sharath Kumar, Deepak among others. The only female protagonist is Amrutha Srinivasan,” Karthik adds.
He also says that the main aim of starting this initiative is to encourage independent filmmakers and create a scope for their films to get theatrical release. When we queried if the next edition would have bigger stars, he smiles and says, “Yes, if this attempt succeeds, I have plans to make anthologies with biggies soon!”
