Cruel Cinema: New Tamil Film

Cruel Cinema: New Tamil Film

This series is an unflinching introduction to the new wave of films and star directors from Tamil Nadu, the southern Indian state. These small-budget films, which have become blockbusters and critical darlings in their home country, are a far cry from extravagant Bollywood musicals, often graphically depicting the tumultuous, violent lives of criminals, beggars, and outcasts. All films are in Tamil with English subtitles.

The series is curated by Lalitha Gopalan, Associate Professor in Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin and Anuj Vaidya, co-director of 3rd I Films, which hosts the San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival. This series is a presentation of 3rd I Films. Logistical Support for the traveling series is provided by the Center for South Asia Studies, UC Berkeley. Special support for the series provided by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Special Thanks To Venkateswaran Narayanan, Naman Ramachandran, Srinivas Bhashyam, Puneeta Kala, Tom Vick, and Ivan Jaigirdar. 35mm Prints for this series were provided by Selvaraghavan, K. Muralidharan, V. Swaminathan and G. Venugopal, Ameer Sultan, K. E. Gnanavelraja, Sasikumar, Bala and K.S. Sreenivasan.

Series pass available: $20 Members / $30 General

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Pudhupettai

 3rd I Films

Aug 26, 2011

(Selvaraghavan, 2006, India, 168min, 35mm)

 A commercial blockbuster in Tami Nadu, this film chronicles the unlikely rise of Kokki Kumar from petty criminal to powerful gang lord in the slums of Chennai. 

“The look of the film is amazing .. . I would compare it to City of God, Amores Perros . . . Dhanush has the energy of a young Al Pacino.” —Toronto International Film Festival

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Paruthiveeran

Aug 27, 2011

(Ameer Sultan India, 2007, 35mm, 162 min)

Paruthiveeran was the Official Selection at the Berlin Film Festival and a widely discussed film in India. Set against an arid village landscape on the outskirts of Madurai, this tortured love story has more in common with the escalating violence of Peckinpah’s border Westerns than typical pastoral films.

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Subramaniapuram

Aug 28, 2011

(Sasikumar, India, 2008, 35mm, 160min)

Sasikumar’s box office smash offers an unvarnished look at the friendship of five men living in a Madurai neighborhood. The film is hailed for its careful mounting of a mise-en-scène set in the 1980s.

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Naan Kadavul

Aug 29, 2011

(Bala, India, 2009, 35mm, 150min)

Winner of the National Award for Best Director in 2009, Bala’s film speaks of madness on the margins and the grotesque tragedy therein.

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