Oruvanukku Oruthi? — Is it always one woman for one man? Can it never be one woman for one woman or one man for one man? This is the question that the short film Oruvanukku Oruthi?raises through its two characters and the conversation that they share.
This Pride Month, Vimal Santiagu gives us this nice little film about two individuals who meet when their parents forcefully set them up. The film opens with the mothers of both the characters taunting them about getting married. The characters played by actors Regin Rose and Tamilarasi Anandhavalli are completely disinterested but agree eventually. The two meet and in the course of their conversation, Regin reveals that he's bisexual and Tamilarasi reveals that she's gender fluid.
They end up talking about their past, their lovers, loves and the prospect of a future together.
Besides the fact that the subject itself is quite new in the Tamil short film circuit, the film is also charming because it's not overwhelming or preachy in any sense. The director says he wrote the script about two years ago. The idea of two strangers meeting for a marriage alliance was inspired by the Telugu film Pelli Choopulu, Vimal says. "I really loved that film but of course it could not be the same so I was wondering what I could do differently," he added.
Like most young people, Vimal's parents also pressurised him to get married and the same was happening with his friends. "It also began to happen to my gay friends. That's when the idea crossed my mind," he tells us. Soon, he started to meet and talk to his gay friends to get an understanding of how they manage these situations and how it impacts their lives. And that's how the filmmaker began to pen the script of his directorial debut.
The journey to that stage wasn't easy for Vimal. With a mechanical engineering degree and an MBA, he geared up to venture into the film industry. He was completely lost at first but has been working towards his goal steadily. "I'm mostly a writer though. That's what I really like and that's my thing. But I was really interested in independent filmmaking but of course, that's not an easy path to tread. Then I decided to direct my own film," he explained. But he says none of this would have been possible had he not met cinematographer, Dinesh K Babu, who was also the cinematographer of 8 Thottakkal, "He was the person who brought my words and gave them such beautiful visuals. I would have never been able to make Oruvanukku Oruthi? without him."
Coming back to the subject of the film, Vimal said he wanted his characters to be straightforward and wanted to show their anger and pain and confusion, "We deal with really intense feelings in a relationship, sometimes we want to love someone with all our hearts. But when they break our hearts we want to kill them and sometimes we feel like dying. Whether we voice our feelings it's true that we have them. So I wanted my characters to be the same way, that's why the female character talks openly," he explained.
Watch the film here —
The film released on June 15, a day before Vimal's birthday. And there's a reason why it was released that day, "I've been working on this for over two years and so I wanted it to release it at least a day before I turned another year older," he laughed. The 17-minute short film has a stellar cast, crew and technical team and is already getting rave reviews.
Among the many nice things that people had to say in the film, one person said that he wished he could follow up on the characters and see what they were up to. The film does leave you curious about the future of the two characters. Fortunately, Vimal feels the same way too which is why he wants to pursue this story as a full-length film. "People have shown interest in turning this short film into a feature. So I think I'll do that but what I really want to make is a web series with the same stories. I want to delve more into their lives and their future," he explained. So that is what we can expect from the director next, "If not this, then something else. But I also run a digital agency so I will have to manage the two."
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