Vinothraj on Koozhangal winning at IFFR

Debutant director PS Vinothraj is elated as his film Koozhangal has bagged the prestigious Tiger Award at the 50th Rotterdam Film Festival 2021, a first for a Tamil movie. “We are extremely delighted by this recognition. We got to know that the jury and viewers who watched Koozhangal at the festival were raving about it. Usually, a few members from the film’s team visit the country where the film festival is held to get live feedback from the audience.But, we badly missed the opportunity due to the pandemic. However, we are excited about the accomplishment,” says the director.
Vinoth informs that it was a real-life incident that took place in his family which inspired him to make the film. “The incident had a huge impact on me and I decided to make it into a film. I spent a lot of time looking for an arid landscape, which was required for the story. Finally, I found it at Arittapatti, near Melur in Madurai, where the whole film was shot in over 30 days. The mountains in the 13 villages where we shot the film, are thousands of years old. And as I explored those villages, my story, too, developed on its own.”
The biggest challenge, he recollects, was shooting in extremely humid weather. “As sunlight was crucial for the story, we would start shooting every day after 10am and wind up by 3pm. We would watch the rushes in the evening and that would give us the motivation for the next day.”
Vinoth feels that big names like Yuvan Shankar Raja (music director of the film), Nayanthara and Vignesh Shivan (producers) associating with the project, helped it gain more visibility. The team is now looking forward to screening the film in more festivals, after which they intend to release it in theatres towards the end of the year