Interview with ‘Appuchi Gramam’ director Vi Anand

Only Kollywood interacted with Vi Anand, the director of sci-fi thriller Appuchi Graamam which hits the cinemas this Friday.

Going by the trailer, it looks like a Sci-fi. Tell me more about ‘Appuchi Graamam’?

I got inspired by a few incidents that happened in my childhood. When I was studying in Erode, I saw a newspaper article about ‘end of the world’. There was this small village that actually believed in the news and started panicking but at the end of the day, they started celebrating with family and friends because they felt that was their last day on Earth. They forgot all the enmity and enjoyed the moment. What inspired me was that how the news about the ‘end’ had so much effect on the lives of these people in the small village. The core idea of the film is that when we know about the time and day of our death, we tend to be different from how we used to live. Our attitude towards life changes and we start caring about even the smallest things. There would nothing be worthier than life at the moment. Not even money and other luxuries we crave for so much. I had a relative who died of Cancer. When he came to know about it, he changed so much as a person. He was very friendly with everyone and patched up with all the people he had fought over the years.

Why is the film being promoted as a sci-fi project?

It’s actually a village drama with science-fiction element as the backdrop. The sci-fi factor is sure going to attract a lot of attention and that’s why we are promoting as a film in that genre.

We haven’t had many sci-fi films in Tamil. What convinced you to include the sci-fi element in your story?

The core concept as I’ve said before is about what happens when we come to know about the day and time of our death. Hence, I obviously wanted an element of natural disaster to be included in the story. That’s when I stumbled upon research information that meteorites and asteroids are among the top ten threats to mankind. With imminent death coming our way through natural disaster, I felt there’s so much room for drama to be included in the story. I never wanted to do a story about an asteroid hitting a village. It’s the other way around. I wanted to capture the human emotions when death is upon us and we can’t do anything about it. When Tsunami struck us a few years back, there was so much of drama in it required for a film’s story.

How are you going to strike a balance between the sci-fi angle and the village drama? How technical is your film?

The beauty of this script is that I get to bring together two extreme things – a) a remote village where people are not bothered about life beyond theirs and b) an asteroid that’s scheduled to attack soon. I felt this contrast is the magic. If an asteroid is slated to hit a city, people prepare themselves much in advance because they can afford. It will be the exact opposite when it hits a village. We didn’t try to make it very technical and have attempted to be as logical as possible and convincing enough for people to travel through the story. There may be some elements we have overlooked for certain reasons but otherwise we’ve tried to be very logical.

How did producers react to such a script that has sci-fi element weaved together? What were their instant reactions?

I finished writing this script almost six years back. I had pitched it to a lot of producers and when they learnt that it’s about an asteroid coming to hit a village, they automatically assumed that people won’t understand and accept it. Luckily, I stumbled upon this production house called Eye Catch Media, who were on the lookout for innovate scripts. Six years back, there wasn’t any trend of welcoming unique films and that’s why most turned down my script. It isn’t the same today as we’ve opened up to different kind of films. The biggest misconception is that sci-fi films cost a lot. Many producers were under the assumption that I would spend some INR 20 crore on the project. But we managed to make this film on a budget most would be surprised to know. I convinced them that the asteroid part doesn’t come throughout but only at crucial junctures, and therefore, it wouldn’t cost much. My producers understood that it’s possible to make the film the way I had envisioned it. People tend to assume that CG-facilitated films cost a lot but we’ve proved them wrong. It was extremely challenging to find a producer because nobody is even ready to listen to the idea completely.

Don’t you think reluctance towards this genre is because we haven’t made any good sci-fi films to rave about?

That may also be the reason and there are a few sci-fi films that are made and yet to release in cinemas. I don’t think it’s about the quality of CG or the logicality of the subject in films in this genre, but it’s about how much audience connect with the script. There should be a balance of other factors as well in such kind of films. One of the reasons our producers agreed to back my film is because they never saw it as a full-length sci-fi flick. There’s lot of drama and humour in our film. My approach to the subject is very commercial and that’s what appealed to my producers. I’ve handled this film the way R.K Narayanan’s Malgudi Days was shot. The filmmaking style is very simple. We’ve captured the life in a village as realistically as possible and never tried to enhance the viewing experience with any gimmicks.This I feel will help us connect with the audience.

Talk about the graphics in the film. How challenging was it to pull it off?

A Hyderabad-based company has worked on the graphics. They’ve also worked previously with me on a few commercial projects. It was challenging because even they haven’t tried anything like this before. We worked using storyboards because a lot of work had to be visualized on paper before we could even attempt on screen.