R ARIVANANTHAM
Sociopreneur and actor Dhanush says education and teachers are the main source in one’s life and how that can change things.
#VaathiAudioLaunch pic.twitter.com/c9he8JCSCe
— Sithara Entertainments (@SitharaEnts) February 5, 2023
Dhanush was speaking at the audio launch of his bilingual film ‘Vaathi’ in Tamil and ‘Sir’ in Telugu, a socio political drama. He said that only after acting in ‘Vaathi’ he understood how tough it is to be a teacher. The actor said that ‘Vaathi’ is a movie that is set in the 90s and added he understood how education and teachers are the main source in one’s life and how that can change things. He stated that director Venky Atluri reached out to him during lockdown to speak about the film’s story and was denying at that point of time, but later agreed to do it.
#VaathiMusicDay is here! 😍🎶
Wait for another 💣 album is almost over! 🕺#VaathiVaraar 🤩 #VaathiAudioLaunch @dhanushkraja #VenkyAtluri @iamsamyuktha_ @gvprakash @dopyuvraj @NavinNooli @vamsi84 #SaiSoujanya @SitharaEnts @Fortune4Cinemas @7screenstudio @adityamusic pic.twitter.com/Y74tc0Gwct
— Seven Screen Studio (@7screenstudio) February 4, 2023
- The change in the divine educational system is the reason for the creation of ‘Vaathi’; Director Venky Atluri.
- ‘Vaathi’ directed by Venky Atluri is all set to release in theatres on February 17
- Samuthirakani plays a negative role in the film as a manager of schools and coaching institutes
- The film is a socio political drama and it stars Dhanush as a Teacher and the rest of the cast includes Samyuktha Menon, Sai Kumar, Samuthirakani, Tanikella Bharani, Thotapalli Madhu, Narra Srinivas, Pammi Sai, Aadukalam Naren among others.
‘Vaathi’ directed by Venky Atluri is all set to release in theatres on February 17. The movie’s music is composed by GV Prakash Kumar and the film’s audio launch happened on Saturday, February 4 in Chennai. The juke box of the film has 5 songs and already two singles were released before the audio launch.
Produced by Nagavamsi S – Sai Soujanya under Sithara Entertainments & Fortune Four Cinemas, and directed by the young and successful director of Telugu film industry, Venky Atluri and has Samyukta debuting as the female lead. The film also stars Bharathiraja, Saikumar, Tanikella Bharani, Samuthirakani, Thodapalli Madhu, Nara Srinivas, Bhammi Sai, Hyper Adi, Sha Ra, Ken Karunaas, Aadukalam Naren, Ilavasasu, Motta Rajendran, Hareesh Peradi, Praveena and others.
Director Venki Atluri says, “I started thinking about some ideas for the next film during the Covid 19 lockdown that started in 2020. At that time, students could not attend live classes, so they started online classes. But instead of halving the fare, they hiked it higher than before. They collected bus fares without running the school buses. In the late nineties, when IT companies and multi-specialty hospitals started to emerge, the government increased the number of engineering and medical colleges. Some people started taking advantage of this as coaching center and private coaching classes. Subsequently, the fees of schools and colleges also increased tremendously.
Education is always an emotional subject for people. Parents want to give quality education to their children. So even middle-class parents, relying on the advertisements of educational institutions, showed enthusiasm to enroll their children in private schools. But it is not because the government school teachers are not competent, the main reason is that they are not paid properly. They say that education is a non-profit service. But they have made it a business. On the other hand, they created an image of helping education by starting a foundation. They have exploited the loopholes in education and turned it into a professional business. It is easy to reach people by telling it as an entertaining film without telling it as a full movie but adding some messages to tell the people. I always like entertaining movies. Should the education system change? Or should the parents change? We have given a better solution to that in our film.
Samuthirakani plays a negative role in the film as a manager of schools and coaching institutes. When he was told about this story, he initially hesitated whether he would be able to do this negative character as he has always questioned this education system in many films. However, he liked this story very much. There is a good understanding between him and Dhanush. Although they have already acted in father and son roles, it will definitely be different to have them opposite each other in this film.
Samyukta plays a biology teacher working in a government school. She plays a character who wants to help this school but can’t do anything because of some boundary restrictions. The story takes place between 1997 and 2000. At the time of the film’s launch, Tamil Nadu didn’t have a lot of leeway, so we mostly shot in Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad to create a 90s feel for the film. Bharathiraja played one of the most important characters in this film. Among the films directed by him, ‘Vedham Pudhidhu’ is my favorite film.
“This is the pride I take with Vaathi” ; says a confident Samyuktha, sharing her experience of acting in the film.
“Please don’t call me Samyukta Menon. I don’t want to include any caste name. My name in the title card of this film is mentioned as ‘Samyuktha’. We can’t do anything about what the adults have done when we enrol in school. Now it’s our choice to change it. I can’t say anything about other stars adding caste names to their names like this. This is my personal opinion. Tamil has been my favourite language since my youth. Especially at a young age, I became very interested in Tamil through ‘Mustafa Mustafa’ song. After that I started listening to more Tamil songs. So far I have never heard lyrics in any other language as sweet as Tamil. Tamil is the only language with the most melodious lyrics. Even for this film I wanted to dub in Tamil myself. Though I tried really hard, due to some reasons including shooting, I could not proceed with dubbing.”
