‘Nayanthara chooses scripts based on merit and not commerce’

CHENNAI: Ashwin Saravanan is busy finalising the cuts of his second collaboration with Nayanthara that is titled Connect. Produced by Nayanthara’s home banner Rowdy Pictures, the film that will release on December 22 is another horror film from the director’s kitty.

The teaser is being lauded for its spine-chilling moments with glimpses of some remarkable performances. “These stories, I could say, come from my personal experiences. I write down things I have gone through in a certain period of my life. Connect comes from my fear and anxiety of lockdown. I have put all these emotions in the framework of horror and see if people could relate to it,” he tells us. 

Divulging further about the storyline in which Nayanthara is locked in what looks like the bedroom of her apartment, Ashwin says, “It is not something groundbreaking that we have tried to convey in Connect. The story is set in the backdrop of lockdown. Having set the story in such a milieu that has its limitations in terms of characters, or locations, my excitement began there. Everytime a filmmaker sets out to make a film, he wants to try something new. So whatever I wanted to convey or emote during the lockdown, has fallen in place with Connect.”

This is his second collaboration with Nayanthara after Maya. Talking about her willingness to produce the script as well apart from playing the lead, the filmmaker says, “She is brilliant when it comes to choosing smart scripts. She looks at a script based on its merit and not based on how much money this would make. When I pitched the idea to her, she wanted to know my way of perceiving the story and the audience for it. There was no discussion on the commercial viability, which is the key. When I complete a script, they are independent films at heart. I don’t see it in a way where a big company would come forward to producing it or stars being a part of it. Instead, I see it in a way if I can go ahead and make the film if no one else produces it.” 

Connect is co-written by his wife Kavya Ashwin. Ask him if she was able to see the lockdown the way Ashwin saw it, he replies, “We worked over video calls as the scripting happened during the lockdown. She was in Puducherry and I was in Chennai. We wrote about things that were happening around us. Once we landed the idea, writing was much simpler,” he concludes.