Saniya Iyappan will play a dancer in her Kollywood debut

After impressing Mollywood audiences with her performance in films like Queen and

Lucifer

,

Saniya Iyappan

is all set to debut in Kollywood. The actress will be playing a dancer in debutant

Jai Vijay Kumar

’s

Irali

, which stars

Vennish Kanna

in the lead.

“I can say for sure that no one else has used bananas to narrate a story that is of utmost importance to our society,” begins the director confidently, “In 2010, when I was assisting SP Rajkumar sir, I had gone to Koyambedu to buy a banana thaar. I’d seen people immersing bunch of fruits in a drum full of chemicals. When I enquired, I was told that while it may take a week for bananas to ripen naturally, spraying them with chemicals, like certain kinds of acid powders fastens the process. I also learnt that if the amount of chemicals exceeds the permissible quantity, the fruits could turn poisonous and it may lead to cancer. It got me thinking, and I decided to make a film based on that.”
The team got Cheran to launch the title of the film. “Irali is a word we picked up from Tirukkural, and it means Theengu (harm). The film is set in Pollachi, and the team has almost completed the movie. “It’s a simple story that narrates the ill effects of industrial chemical waste,” says Vijay Kumar, who has previously directed a few short films, “When I had met a distributor in Tiruppur, he told me the story is very relatable because recently, several tonnes of artificially ripened bananas were seized by officials.”

Vennish insists that the film will be an entertaining fare and not be preachy. “Yes, we have a message — tampering with nature will have disastrous effects. The film traces the lives of four farmers and their sons, who lease out an agricultural land that has lost its fertility because of illegal dumping of untreated industrial chemical waste. How they then start working for a man who deals in bananas and educate others in their village about the harms of disturbing nature’s balance has been narrated in an entertaining manner,” he signs off.