Director

My films are a personal reflection on the impact that the state - the system and the world - has on me.

Manikandan is a complete filmmaker and knows his job well.

Slum children eat crow's eggs for nutrition yet nobody respects this common bird. It's the exotic birds which fascinate all.

Film festivals give less of a platform to mainstream films because they already have a market.

For me, every film is a learning process. After each, I take time to unlearn.

My mentor is Balu Mahendra.

It is much easier to do a film about something that the audience readily knows about - say, cricket. It is much more difficult to write a film based on golf.

When you are adapting a book to a visual medium, you tend to leave a few things and add a few new ones.

If you get the right cast, half your work is done.

Primarily, a festival is a platform to sell films that are not meant for the mainstream audience. Cultural exchange is also important aspect of a film festival.

Anybody with a good smart phone can shoot and edit a film. Distributing it is the hard part.

Kaaka Muttai' is the expression of an insider. It is a film about globalisation and its effects.

Actually, after three years, I realised that the opening scenes of 'Polladhavan' were inspired by 'Lolita,' in which the lead character says, 'Why did I meet her? My life would have been different had I not met her.'

One of my staff members told me that after the release of the film, whenever a custodial death is reported, people say - 'Another 'Visaranai.' This is the kind of change that I am looking for; it should hit you hard.

The academy which boasts of 6,000 to 8,000 voting members are most likely to get swayed by the national mood in the US. There is a point person for every movie at the Oscars, who is supposed to promote the film and is trusted by the panel. By keeping all these in mind, Tamil cinema making its way to the final list is quite ambitious.

AJ' is a very special movie to me. I have been watching Dinesh and Rajkumar from their initial days, and have witnessed their evolution. The film talks about the bond shared between a father and a son who wants to fulfil his father's dreams. It's a cross between a comedy of errors and a political satire.

I don't believe in one slow panning-shot to show a place. It should unfurl in the story itself.

I always feel that my films ought to teach me something about life.

Once, a man at the customs duty check at the Delhi Airport asked me a question in Hindi, and I told him that I didn't speak the language. He got angry and said, 'How could you not speak in Hindi? Hindi is our mother tongue.' I told him that it wasn't my mother tongue. He got furious, and made me wait for over 45 minutes.

I do films for the common man and identify myself one among them.