63rd National Awards: Awards are an encouragement, says 'Visaranai' director Vetrimaaran

He is a National Award-winner and has just bagged one more for the Best Tamil film. Director Vetrimaaran has been the director and producer of National Award-winning films like Aadukalam, Kaaka Muttai and now Visaranai. 

In 2011, Vetrimaaran's Aadukalam bagged five National Awards including Best Direction and Best Screenplay for him and Best Actor for Dhanush. He co-produced Kaaka Muttai with Dhanush and it bagged the National Film Award for Best Children's Film in 2015. He returned to direction after four years with Visaranai and has now won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil at the 63rd National Awards.

Speaking exclusively to dna, director Vetrimaaran says about his film Visaranai winning the Best Tamil Film Award, "Awards are an encouragement. An award is not something we aim at while making a film. We have to do justice to the content we are handling."

Visaranai is based on the novel called Lock Up by Coimbatore autodriver Chandrakumar. Vetrimaaran has written the screenplay and directed the film. He and actor Dhanush have co-produced the film as well.  

The movie also won the Best Supporting Actor award for actor-director Samuthirakani and Best Editing for Late T E Kishore. Says Vetrimaaran, "I am very happy that Kishore got this award. His last conscious thought was about Visaranai . This award could bring some solace to his family. I definitely miss working with Kishore."

As for Samuthirakani taking home best Supporting Actor, the ace director says, "We had a good character in the film and when we had finished the movie, I told him that recognition was on the way for him. The best part about an actor is that they should firstly be receptive and secondly be expressive. And Kani was both. Visaranai also gave him the scope and space to explore."

Now that Vetrimaaran has won another National Award is there more pressure on him? "No, not at all," he replies. "The pressure and hype is created by the media. Of course, expectations are there and we cannot stop that nor change yourself for expectations. We just continue making films."

Director Vetrimaaran is set to make Vada Chennai with Dhanush in the lead and has also recently bought the movie rights for author Neelima Kota's book The Shoes of The Dead.