Arvind, Priya play a couple in Rathindran’s latest short film

Rathindran R Prasad, who helmed Aishwarya Rajesh’s Boomika and Inmai in Navarasa, has now directed Amilam, a short film about relationships featuring Arvind Swami and Priya Anand, which has been selected for the Mumbai film festival. “After the release of Navarasa, I’d got a call from the makers of Tumbbad and Ship Of Theseus, who told me that they were making a multilingual anthology and wanted me to direct one of the films.I wanted to direct it in either Tamil or English because I’m not that comfortable with Hindi and I prefer writing my own dialogues,” he says. The director has also co-written a Malayalam short in the antholgy, titled Kottathil Ganapathy.
The 12-minute short, he says, is “a commentary on the changing society”. “There are only two characters in the film, and it shows how interpersonal relationships are changing, how COVID dramatically changed the way we see relationships,” he elaborates.
Arvind Swami’s character, Bala, will be a happy-go-lucky person who we meet in our daily life, he informs. “But sometimes, such persons are not exactly what they present themselves to be. There could be a darkness behind the I-don’t-care attitude and funny personality,” he adds.
Priya Anand plays his wife, and her character will be a complete contrast to him, says Rathindran. “She’s extremely disciplined, is a fitness freak, always focuses on health, and is annoyed with her husband, who, she thinks, is a couch potato,” says the director.
Niketh, who shot Soorarai Pottru, has done the cinematography of this film while Prithvi Chandrasekhar, who did the music for Boomika and Nayanthara’s Connect, is the composer.