Director Balaji Vembu Chelli’s Nilanadukkam (The Tremor) will be the first Tamil film to premiere at Canada’s 49th Montreal Festival Du Nouveau Cinema that will be held between October 7 and 18 this year. Previously, Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Malayalam film Jallikattu had premiered in this festival and the only other Indian film to make it to the festival this time is Laila Aur Satt Geet (The Shepherdess and the Seven Songs) by director Pushpendra Singh, originally made in Gojri language.
“It was exciting for us to get the invite. The festival has a rich history of independent films. We have been selected under the Temps section which we hear is quite popular with the audience. We are very curious to know about their reaction,” says the 33-year-old filmmaker who hails from Chennai in Tamil Nadu.
Balaji Vembu Chelli
Balaji who made his debut as a director with this film, graduated in filmmaking from the LV Prasad Film and TV Academy in Chennai. He began his journey as an assistant director in Kalyana Samayal Sadham and decided to take the plunge himself with Nilanadukkam.
The premise of this film, in fact, is quite intriguing. A young photojournalist (Rajeev Anand of Manusangada fame) takes a detour to a nondescript mountain village near Kodaikanal which has been abandoned after an earthquake. Here, he scouts for a good scoop but finds himself in a very strange setting. “It is the story of a catastrophe and a journalist. It all started with a realisation on how live news on television is being fed to us as a viewer,” begins Balaji. The film has been shot at Kukkal, located about 40 kms from Kodaikanal.
“I could not shake away this feeling that the use of repetitive images, sounds and melodramatic music was being done in a deliberate way to manipulate the viewer. Therefore, I wanted to come up with a structure that was going to create the opposite effect of manipulation on the viewer,” he explains.
Balaji blended some of the folktale elements from that region to present a road movie that's also a mystery. “I was reading about folk tales and ghost stories from the region and it all blended together so well to form the story of a road movie,” he adds.
In many ways, Nilanadukkam can be considered an experimental film, says the director. “We shot this film in 25 days with a small crew of 15 people. The film itself is only 70 minutes long and we shot this entirely using live recording,” he shares.
The film’s crew includes Vedaraman Sankaran, Dorai Prakash SA for editing, Maarten Visser for music, Vivek Anandan for sound design. The film has been co-produced by Balaji’s childhood friend Vivek Ramanujam of Overturn Pictures and also by Mathivanan Rajendran of Stray Factory.
While filming Nilanadukkam around late 2018, the team was in for an unforgettable experience that befitted the title. “We were stranded following cyclone gaja in the region, without access to food, water and electricity. This experience set us up towards a unique challenge,” Balaji shares.
Explaining that the film would be a unique amalgamation of Tamil and world cinema, Balaji is hopeful of reaching the right audience in India. “We have seen good horror films being made on shoestring budgets. Films like Uruvam (1991, starring Mohan) have a casual art-house sensibility to them. And there has always been a good audience for art-house films in India. Such a viewer has always found ways to watch good experimental films. However, the challenge lies in taking the film to them. Now with digital platforms, I think independent filmmakers find it liberating to make art-house films,” he asserts.