Reputed director Vetrimaaran hit the bullseye yet again with his fifth directorial, Asuran, which released this October. Prior to Asuran, the filmmaker had made his debut in 2007 with the blockbuster, Pollathavan, starring Dhanush and then teamed up with the actor once again for Aadukalam, which fetched them both the National Awards for Best Direction and Best Actor in 2011. They also went on to work on last year’s gangster action drama, Vada Chennai, which has gone on to earn a cult following of its own since then with two sequels also planned out.

Having also directed the critically-acclaimed crime thriller, Visaranai, in 2016, Vetrimaaran has also produced several notable films under his Grassroot Film Company banner among which include Udhayam NH4, Kaaka Muttai, Kodi, Lens, Annanukku Jey to name a few. Now, Vetrimaaran is presenting his next, Baaram, directed by Priya Krishnaswamy, which is the sole Tamil film to have won a National Award this year. Announced to have a state-wide release in early 2020, Baaram deals with the hard-hitting subject of Thalaikoothal, or the killing of the infirm elderly by their own children and has a cast of over 85 actors with most of them being first-time performers from the villages, who were chosen to play the roles to enhance the realistic treatment of the film.

Baaram is being distributed by SP Cinemas which has R. Raju, Sugumar Shanmugam, SuPa Muthukumar, Jayalakshmi and Stella Gobi play some of the major roles with Ved Nair scoring the music, followed by cinematography by Jayanth Sethu Mathavan, sound design and mix by Tarun Sharma and dialogues and additional screenplay by Rakav Mirdath. Priya Krishnaswamy has written, edited and directed Baaram while also producing it under her Reckless Roses banner with Ardra Swaroop. Incidentally, Priya is the first woman director to have won a National Award in the category of Best Feature Film in Tamil in the 65 years since the Awards were instituted.