Many Tamil historians, including the revered Theodore Bhaskaran, have raised concerns over the paucity of cinema literature and documentation in the past and the present. While Tamil cinema continues to be one of the leading contributors to the field, making close to 250 films a year, the literature about the art form is shockingly meager in comparison. Filling the void, Arun, the founder of the Tamil parallel cinema movement Tamil Studios, has started publishing scripts for popular Tamil films. From the scripts of Vijay’s Leo to Vetri Maaran’s Vada Chennai, Tamil Studio publishes several scripts under its sister brand Pure Cinema. If you had been to the Chennai Book Fair 2024, you would have found the stalls of Pure Cinema teeming with youngsters grabbing the screenplays of Tamil films, a scene that wouldn’t have been possible a few years ago.We caught up with Arun for a conversation about the movement that has produced several directors in Tamil cinema, the process of screenplay publishing, and his thoughts on why it is important for a healthy cinema industry.
Cover of scripts of Vada Chennai, Viduthalai, and Leo-2
Can you give an introduction to Tamil Studios and how it all started?
In 2007, I finished a filmmaking course and wanted to make films but couldn’t because of a family situation. So, I joined an IT company and earned well. After settling things, I again came back to make short films. Back then, except for editor Lenin sir, not many knew about short films. At least, the concept of an indie short film was non-existent. While trying to make on, I saw young and naive assistant directors getting scammed by the industry. To bring them all together, we started a website that would have the information of all the technicians etc. But back then, the internet hadn’t become a huge thing. So, we organized a meeting and brought together a lot of aspiring talents. We organized Kurum Padam Vattam (Short film circle) and screened short films in a hall in Egmore for eight years. That forayed into the short film trend, which caught on after Nalaiya Iyakunar (a short film competition show on Kalaingar TV). Karthik Subbaraj, Nalan Kumarasamy, and many directors emerged from that movement. Later, we made a space for ourselves on Facebook and wrote posts criticizing the issues with mainstream cinema. Back then, our cinema was in a bad state. We either had love triangles or family dramas. We spoke about cinema for social change. On top of that, we also came down heavily on the form. Tamil cinema was technically subpar back then. That’s how Tamil Studio emerged. We then brought in a monthly magazine called Pada Surul and conducted workshops for free with leading directors talking about their crafts and many such events. Pure Cinema came into being later.
Publishing Tamil screenplays as a movement hasn’t happened before. What sparked it?
Six years after we started Tamil Studios, around 2015, we started a publishing house. Back then, if you wanted to learn screenplay, the only means was to go join an institute or work as an assistant director. In Tamil, there weren’t enough screenplays or books on cinema. It was happening worldwide. In colleges abroad, there were courses about the transformation of script to screen. We wanted to explain how the scene was shot and more about every shot. That’s how we made the script book of Mysskin’s Onaayum Aattukkuttiyum. He helped us a lot by providing the script and giving the details behind them. Our students collaborated with him and worked for one and a half years to make it into a book. On one side of the book, you get the script, and on the other, the backstory of it and how it was shot. We did that for every shot of the film. He would have explained the reason behind using yellow light in a scene, the reason why a character wears the watch on his left hand, and intricate details like that. If you read the book and watch the film, you will get the confidence to make a film yourself. The book became a bestseller. Later, we couldn’t do such exhaustive work for all the scripts because it would take years. So, we published other scripts of Mysskin. They were all successful… (content continues)