On 22nd September, the entire film fraternity was beaming with pride as Vetrimaaran’s Visaranai was chosen as India’s official entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category for the Academy Awards 2017. After campaigning rigorously for a couple of months, the director himself announced on Twitter the films that were shortlisted. Now, even though the film has fallen out of the Oscar race, wishes have been pouring in for the director and the entire team for having made it this far.
When DC caught up with Vetrimaaran, he seemed proud of the efforts. “It was a great campaign and turned out to be an eye-opener for us. We met a lot of talented and important people from Hollywood. One of the most memorable moments was when legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog watched Visaranai and appreciated our efforts. If not for Dhanush and Vinod Kumar (Producer and Executive Director of Wunderbar Films respectively), this wouldn’t have been possible at all,” he exclaims.
When asked if he was able to watch the other films that were selected, he says, “Unfortunately, I couldn’t, but I’m sure that those nine films are there by merit. I must thank those who stood by me when Visaranai was selected as India’s entry. Not just my team, but also the audience for hailing our project. It is a complete honour and I am extremely happy to have represented India on this most prestigious platform.”
