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Idhuvum Kadandhu Pogum

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Idhuvum Kadandhu Pogum
Release poster
Directed byAnil Krishnan
Srihari Prabaharan
Written bySrihari Prabaharan
Produced byM. Saravanan
M. S. Guhan
Aruna Guhan
Aparna Guhan
StarringShivaji Dev
Shilpa Bhatt
Ravi Raghavendra
Anusha Varma
Anjali Nair
CinematographySaleem Bilal
Edited byAnil Krishnan
Music byUmashankar Kannaiyan
Production
company
Release date
  • 14 April 2014 (2014-04-14)
Running time
53 minutes
CountryIndia
LanguageTamil

Idhuvum Kadandhu Pogum (transl. This Too Shall Pass) is a 2014 Indian Tamil-language drama film directed by the debutants Anil Krishnan and Srihari Prabaharan. The story and screenplay were written by the latter. The film stars Shivaji Dev, Shilpa Bhatt, Ravi Raghavendra and Anusha Varma. The film's plotline is about finding a ray of light amidst a cloud of gloom and depression.[1]

The film was produced by the twin sisters Aruna Guhan and Aparna Guhan under AVM Productions. Filmed by Saleem Bilal and edited by Anil Krishnan, the film features music by Umashankar and lyrics written by Manivannan and Sathyaseelan Rajendran. It is touted to be the first Indian studio-backed film to be made exclusively for the Internet.[2] Made as a direct-to-stream video, the film was released in YouTube on 14 April 2014, which marks the New Year in Tamil calendar and the birthday of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar.

Plot

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The film starts off on a tragic note and travels back and forth to then and now. Gautam (Shivaji Dev), a young man in his late twenties, and his fiancée in the U.S., Ramya (Shilpa Bhatt), exchange endearments at midnight little aware of the disaster that is to strike in a few hours. The next morning, he finds out that she has met with an accident and succumbed to her injuries. It isn’t easy for Gautam to come out of the trauma that hits him hard.

Cast

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  • Shivaji Dev as Gautam
  • Ravi Raghavendra as Kumar, Gautam's father
  • Shilpa Bhatt as Ramya
  • Anusha Varma as Divya
  • Berkin Johns as Mani, Gautam's brother
  • Anjali Nair as Deepika
  • Ashok Pandian as Ramya's father
  • Anu Chandrasekaran as the gynecologist

Production

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Established by A. V. Meiyappan in 1945, AVM Productions is one of the oldest surviving film studios in Asia.[3] Twins Aruna Guhan and Aparna Guhan, the great granddaughters of Meiyappan and the fourth generation scions of AVM Productions (their production house), were interested in film production.[4] For their first production venture, they went through several scripts for more than six months but were not satisfied with them.[5] When they saw Kasappu Inippu (Bitter Sweet), a ten-minute short film on YouTube, they were impressed.[5][6] The short was directed by Srihari Prabaharan, a software engineer working for Wipro.[4] The sisters invited him to narrate a script which they eventually liked.[5] They settled for the story line as they felt it was simple, yet strong and poignant. Thus, they zeroed in on the debutant directors Srihari and his friend Anil Krishnan.[6][7]

"It is a subject young people can relate to. It’s in the kind of situation where you feel you have lost something or you feel low. It gives you a message. It teaches you to move on in life."

 — Aparna about the film's theme.[5]

A "feel-good movie", the film deals with the "vicissitudes of emotions involving love".[8][9] Aruna revealed in an interview that it was a story about finding hope. The film was hence titled Idhuvum Kadandhu Pogum which roughly translates to Even This Will Pass. The film, which has a runtime of about 55 minutes, was meant to last between 45 minutes and an hour as the directors felt that anything longer will make it drag. Shying away from stretching the film any longer, Aparna disclosed, "[...] If you drag it a little more, if you try to make it two-and-a-half hours or three hours, you will lose the essence of the story."[5]

Apart from the twins, the credits for production is shared by M. Saravanan and M. S. Guhan, their grand father and father respectively.[5] It is the 177th film to be produced by AVM.[6][10] Realizing that they have fans across the world, they planned to create content for the online platform as they felt Internet was a strong medium to connect with fans.[11] The film exclusively targets the Internet audience and marks AVM's foray into the digital domain with "net flicks".[11][12] It is the first studio-backed short film made exclusively for the Internet.[2][3] Speaking of the motive behind releasing the film on the internet, Aruna felt that internet was a medium which needs to be harnessed properly and expressed hope that this would go a long way in achieving it. She was quoted saying, "This may be an experimental effort, but we perceive the internet as a medium of the future."[9]

The entire cast and crew are made up of youngsters and newcomers.[4] Shivaji Dev, grandson of late yesteryear actor Sivaji Ganesan, was chosen to play the protagonist.[9] The film also features Ravi Raghavendra and Shilpa Bhatt in key roles.[13][14] AVM tweeted through their official Twitter handle that Shivaji Dev was not allowed to sleep for more than 30 hours to get dark circles for his role.[15] Beside producing, Aruna worked on the film's title design and was also the costume designer for the film.[16] Filming commenced and though it was expected to be wrapped up in five days, the shoot lasted 12 days. Although essentially a short feature film, the producers decided to go the whole hog, as they would have for a full-length movie, and did colour correction, EFX and Qube.[5] After four months of production, the film was officially announced in November 2013.[8] The film was made on a shoe-string budget.[9] It was initially estimated to cost about ₹ 10 lakhs.[5] Following the completion of the film, an audit was conducted to estimate expenses and was found to be around ₹ 20 lakhs, as informed by sources close to AVM.[4][9]

Release

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On 22 November 2013, the film was screened in AVM Studios in the presence of M. Saravanan, M. S. Guhan and veteran director S. P. Muthuraman.[9][17] The producers announced they were targeting YouTube, Amazon, Netflix and other online portals to release the film.[12] The film was released in YouTube on 14 April 2014 coinciding with the Tamil New Year's day. Though initially available for view only in India, the film was slated to be made available for the overseas market after a month.[4]

The producers revealed that while viewing online, the film will have two or three one-minute ads in between. The ads were sold through an auction.[4] However, the video was found to have around seven ads with 15–30 seconds duration each.[18] While the film was first released on the internet, it will also be marketed for television.[5][11] The production house will tie-up with satellite TV channels in a bid to recover the production cost.[9]

Reception

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In her review, Malathi Rangarajan of The Hindu wrote that with a story that has substance, a natural treatment and decent performances of the cast, the film should do well. She praised Dev for his performance stating he had shown he can pull both subdued and vociferous emotions with élan. She also added that Ravi Raghavendar gave a standout performance with his "excellent underplay". While hailing the spontaneity of the characters in their display of emotion, she was critical of the narrative and felt that a lag set in halfway through.[6] Writing for The Hindu, Udhav Naig called the film "an optimistic tale of finding love again". Lauding that Shivaji Dev had delivered a dignified performance without melodrama, he also noted that the directors had demonstrated a good understanding of short film grammar by keeping the scenes tight. He also felt that the film has been made without a compromise, and has a heart of its own.[2]

Accolades

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S. P. Muthuraman, who found the film heart-warming, remarked that the performances of the cast were on par with those of experienced actors. Acclaiming Saleem Bilal for his "beautiful" cinematography, he also said that the music was a strong point as it suited the mood throughout the film. In a hand-written letter of appreciation, actor Rajinikanth wrote that the film had traces of Balu Mahendra and Mani Ratnam.[19] The film was officially selected for screening at the Madrid International Film Festival 2014 apart from receiving nominations in Best Cinematography (Saleem Bilal) and Best Costume (Aruna Guhan) categories.[20][21]

References

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  1. ^ Malini Mannath (11 April 2014). "Made in Madras: Digital start". Indulge Express. Archived from the original on 16 April 2014.
  2. ^ a b c Udhav Naig (16 April 2014). "Net gain for short film". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 16 April 2014.
  3. ^ a b Sibi Arasu (25 July 2014). "Coming soon to a website near you". Business Line. Archived from the original on 20 September 2014.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Sangeetha Kandavel (14 April 2014). "Fourth Generation AVM producers to launch latest flick on youtube". The Economic Times. Archived from the original on 16 April 2014.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i N. Ramakrishnan (12 December 2013). "4th Gen AVM scions into film production". Business Line. Archived from the original on 16 April 2014.
  6. ^ a b c d Malathi Rangarajan (23 November 2013). "Entering the Internet fray". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 2 December 2013.
  7. ^ "ஏ.வி.எம்.,ன் புதிய முயற்சி இதுவும் கடந்து போகும்! (AVM's new initiative: Idhuvum Kadandhu Pogum)". Dinamalar (in Tamil). 22 November 2013. Archived from the original on 20 September 2014.
  8. ^ a b S. R. Ashok Kumar (22 November 2013). "Shotcuts: Net gain". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g "Age-old AVM to venture into net-flicks". The New Indian Express. 23 November 2013. Archived from the original on 15 January 2014.
  10. ^ "AVM's next to release in Youtube". IndiaGlitz. 26 March 2014. Archived from the original on 30 March 2014.
  11. ^ a b c M Suganth (30 November 2013). "Kollywood wakes up to online content". The Times of India. TNN. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013.
  12. ^ a b "AVM productions releases 'Idhuvum Kadandhu Pogum' for internet users". CNN IBN. IANS. 24 November 2013. Archived from the original on 16 April 2014.
  13. ^ Anupama Subramanian (24 November 2013). "AVM enters Internet medium in some style". Deccan Chronicle. Archived from the original on 17 April 2014.
  14. ^ "ஏவி.எம் மின் இதுவும் கடந்து போகும் படம் ஏப்ரல் 14-ல் யூடியூப்பில் வெளியீடு (AVM's Idhuvum Kadandhu Pogum to release in YouTube on April 14)". Maalai Malar (in Tamil). 26 March 2014. Archived from the original on 20 September 2014.
  15. ^ "AVM Productions @ProductionsAvm" (Twitter). AVM Productions. 6 April 2014.
  16. ^ Vishal Menon (1 December 2013). "Rise of a new generation". Deccan Chronicle. Archived from the original on 1 December 2013.
  17. ^ MovieBuzz (23 November 2013). "AVM enters online with short film". Sify. Archived from the original on 20 September 2014.
  18. ^ Vikas SN (14 April 2014). "On AVM Productions releasing direct-to-Internet movie on YouTube". MediaNama. Archived from the original on 16 April 2014.
  19. ^ SP. Muthuraman & Superstar Rajini's view of Idhuvum Kadandhu Pogum (YouTube). AVM Productions. 15 April 2014.
  20. ^ "Nominations 2014: Best Cinematography". Madrid International Film Festival. Archived from the original on 19 April 2014. Retrieved 19 April 2014.
  21. ^ "Nominations 2014: Best Costume". Madrid International Film Festival. Archived from the original on 19 April 2014. Retrieved 19 April 2014.
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