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They are the biggest South Indian cinematic voice abroad. With at least six movies releasing in the next few months, the Tamil diaspora tells us how they are taking control of their own narrative
When Kabali opened globally in 2016, it outperformed all other South Indian films released till then, raking in $4.05 million in four days in the US alone. Rajinikanth’s larger-than-life role and director Ranjith’s depiction of Malaysia’s Tamil labourers also garnered much attention. But that is not to say everyone was happy. “It was a narrative of South Indian caste-based politics framed within an inaccurate Malaysian context,” explains Kuala Lumpur-based filmmaker Shanjhey Kumar Perumal, sharing that films like Kabali “don’t really represent our experiences”. Tamil-French actor and writer Anthonythasan Jesuthasan (who goes by the nom-de-plume Shoba Sakthi), concurs. “[These films] might have diaspora characters, but they are not diaspora movies,” he says.
Seven months earlier, Perumal had released his Tamil début, Jagat, which also portrayed the lives of Tamil Malaysians. “After independence, we were forced to relocate to urban areas, but we had no understanding of life outside the plantation. As a child, I lived in a squatter’s community for three years, and what I saw there provided the inspiration for Jagat, a coming-of-age story about a boy living in a similar community,” he says. However, securing distribution was a trial, thanks to the competition from Tamil cinema, which is widely distributed in the country.
The new voices
From the shores of Fiji to the frigid suburbs of Toronto, the Tamil diaspora has, for many years, provided a loyal audience base for Kodambakkam’s Tamil cinema. But after generations of life away from India, they are keen to author their own stories. In fact, today, they are the biggest South Indian cinematic voice abroad. A few projects — like Singaporean director K Rajagopal’s 2016 début, A Yellow Bird, and Sri Lankan documentary filmmaker Jude Ratnam’s Demons in Paradise — have even made it to international film festivals like Cannes.
“Many have been living away from their native land for long enough that they have formed entirely new relationships with Tamil culture,” says Vaseeharan Sivalingam, founder of the Norway Tamil Film Festival (NTTF), a nine-year-old outfit. “Since the early 1980s, we have been experiencing a slow emergence of Tamil diaspora cinema, which has quickened in the past four to five years. This year, for the first time at NTFF (which is holding its annual awards ceremony later this month), we have six feature length films from the diaspora, most of them from Malaysia,” he adds. While some filmmakers have superimposed their local flair on the formulaic song, dance and comedy routine, others have eschewed them in favour of their own styles.
A first in 40
Born in Colombo and raised in Batticaloa and Kandy, Sri Lankan filmmaker King Ratnam was keen to showcase the diversity of the island’s Tamil population in his recently-released début feature, Komaali Kings. “I was also motivated by anger,” he says, “because this is the first fully Tamil feature length film to be released here in more than 40 years. Why has it taken so long for us to represent ourselves as we are — the way we speak, our landscapes, our problems, our civil unrest?”
Cross-border collabs
Shamalan is also exploring a new market across the ocean in Singapore, where Tamil television has always been more popular than cinema, thanks to state-backed funding. In an effort to encourage film production in the island country, Singaporean TV director SS Vikneshwaran Subramaniam has collaborated with Shamalan on Atcham Thavir. Produced by Malaysian radio station Raaga, the thriller-comedy, set to release on May 31 (in Singapore, Malaysia and Chennai), is being marketed as a cross-border collaboration. “The film — about a group of friends attending a wedding and ending up in hot soup — is our way of telling the world that we are also doing Tamil movies,” shares Shamalan.
Staying true to self
That said, the majority of the diaspora film fraternity want to nurture their own industries. Perumal, whose film Jagat was the first Tamil feature to win the Best Malaysian Film award at the 28th Malaysia Film Festival in 2016, has turned down several offers to work in India. “I believe it’s important to establish the voice of the Malaysian Tamil film industry, so we can move away from Kollywood imitations,” he says.
Tamil-Canadian filmmaker Lenin M Sivam, who fled the Sri Lankan civil conflict as a 17-year-old, is of the same bent of mind. In 2009, he used the $10,000 credit limit on his credit card to fund his début feature 1999, a gritty narrative about the gang violence that swept through Toronto’s Tamil communities when he was a teenager. “I wanted to tell my own story — one that I had personal connections to,” Sivam, now 43, says. “I lost a lot of friends because of this violence, and I knew Kollywood would never tell a story like that. To quote the poet R Cheran, ‘Indian Tamil filmmakers making movies about Sri Lankan Tamil problems is like a fish riding a bicycle’,” he adds, smiling. The film, which found success and recovered its costs, premiered at the 2010 Vancouver International Film Festival, where it was named one of the Top 10 Canadian films of the year.
Craft and controversy
In his upcoming feature, Roobha, starring Shoba Sakthi, and releasing in September, Sivam is turning to a more controversial topic — a middle-aged, married Sri Lankan Tamil man who falls in love with a much younger transgender woman. “Even though we see many transgenders in mainstream Tamil movies, it’s almost a taboo topic within the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora,” he says. The story is penned by Shoba Sakthi, who played the lead role in Jacques Audiard’s Cannes 2015 sweep away, Dheepan.
http://www.thehindu.com/entertainme...-from-the-global-backyard/article23615746.ece
When Kabali opened globally in 2016, it outperformed all other South Indian films released till then, raking in $4.05 million in four days in the US alone. Rajinikanth’s larger-than-life role and director Ranjith’s depiction of Malaysia’s Tamil labourers also garnered much attention. But that is not to say everyone was happy. “It was a narrative of South Indian caste-based politics framed within an inaccurate Malaysian context,” explains Kuala Lumpur-based filmmaker Shanjhey Kumar Perumal, sharing that films like Kabali “don’t really represent our experiences”. Tamil-French actor and writer Anthonythasan Jesuthasan (who goes by the nom-de-plume Shoba Sakthi), concurs. “[These films] might have diaspora characters, but they are not diaspora movies,” he says.
Seven months earlier, Perumal had released his Tamil début, Jagat, which also portrayed the lives of Tamil Malaysians. “After independence, we were forced to relocate to urban areas, but we had no understanding of life outside the plantation. As a child, I lived in a squatter’s community for three years, and what I saw there provided the inspiration for Jagat, a coming-of-age story about a boy living in a similar community,” he says. However, securing distribution was a trial, thanks to the competition from Tamil cinema, which is widely distributed in the country.
The new voices
From the shores of Fiji to the frigid suburbs of Toronto, the Tamil diaspora has, for many years, provided a loyal audience base for Kodambakkam’s Tamil cinema. But after generations of life away from India, they are keen to author their own stories. In fact, today, they are the biggest South Indian cinematic voice abroad. A few projects — like Singaporean director K Rajagopal’s 2016 début, A Yellow Bird, and Sri Lankan documentary filmmaker Jude Ratnam’s Demons in Paradise — have even made it to international film festivals like Cannes.
“Many have been living away from their native land for long enough that they have formed entirely new relationships with Tamil culture,” says Vaseeharan Sivalingam, founder of the Norway Tamil Film Festival (NTTF), a nine-year-old outfit. “Since the early 1980s, we have been experiencing a slow emergence of Tamil diaspora cinema, which has quickened in the past four to five years. This year, for the first time at NTFF (which is holding its annual awards ceremony later this month), we have six feature length films from the diaspora, most of them from Malaysia,” he adds. While some filmmakers have superimposed their local flair on the formulaic song, dance and comedy routine, others have eschewed them in favour of their own styles.
A first in 40
Born in Colombo and raised in Batticaloa and Kandy, Sri Lankan filmmaker King Ratnam was keen to showcase the diversity of the island’s Tamil population in his recently-released début feature, Komaali Kings. “I was also motivated by anger,” he says, “because this is the first fully Tamil feature length film to be released here in more than 40 years. Why has it taken so long for us to represent ourselves as we are — the way we speak, our landscapes, our problems, our civil unrest?”
Cross-border collabs
Shamalan is also exploring a new market across the ocean in Singapore, where Tamil television has always been more popular than cinema, thanks to state-backed funding. In an effort to encourage film production in the island country, Singaporean TV director SS Vikneshwaran Subramaniam has collaborated with Shamalan on Atcham Thavir. Produced by Malaysian radio station Raaga, the thriller-comedy, set to release on May 31 (in Singapore, Malaysia and Chennai), is being marketed as a cross-border collaboration. “The film — about a group of friends attending a wedding and ending up in hot soup — is our way of telling the world that we are also doing Tamil movies,” shares Shamalan.
Staying true to self
That said, the majority of the diaspora film fraternity want to nurture their own industries. Perumal, whose film Jagat was the first Tamil feature to win the Best Malaysian Film award at the 28th Malaysia Film Festival in 2016, has turned down several offers to work in India. “I believe it’s important to establish the voice of the Malaysian Tamil film industry, so we can move away from Kollywood imitations,” he says.
Tamil-Canadian filmmaker Lenin M Sivam, who fled the Sri Lankan civil conflict as a 17-year-old, is of the same bent of mind. In 2009, he used the $10,000 credit limit on his credit card to fund his début feature 1999, a gritty narrative about the gang violence that swept through Toronto’s Tamil communities when he was a teenager. “I wanted to tell my own story — one that I had personal connections to,” Sivam, now 43, says. “I lost a lot of friends because of this violence, and I knew Kollywood would never tell a story like that. To quote the poet R Cheran, ‘Indian Tamil filmmakers making movies about Sri Lankan Tamil problems is like a fish riding a bicycle’,” he adds, smiling. The film, which found success and recovered its costs, premiered at the 2010 Vancouver International Film Festival, where it was named one of the Top 10 Canadian films of the year.
Craft and controversy
In his upcoming feature, Roobha, starring Shoba Sakthi, and releasing in September, Sivam is turning to a more controversial topic — a middle-aged, married Sri Lankan Tamil man who falls in love with a much younger transgender woman. “Even though we see many transgenders in mainstream Tamil movies, it’s almost a taboo topic within the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora,” he says. The story is penned by Shoba Sakthi, who played the lead role in Jacques Audiard’s Cannes 2015 sweep away, Dheepan.
http://www.thehindu.com/entertainme...-from-the-global-backyard/article23615746.ece
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