Filmmaker turns a saving grace for disabled cricketers

CHENNAI: Rajesh Vijayakumar, a filmmaker-entrepreneur, who made his debut movie Sutrula in 2014 with Draupathi fame Richard Rishi is a man on a mission. Currently, he helms Jozh Universe, a sports management organisation, which works with a vision for the differently-abled sports athletes, especially cricketers, around the world to support and bring them into light. As a first step towards the goal, a marathon was held in Chennai on Sunday with the theme of ‘Support differently-abled cricketers.’ Rajesh is gearing up to start his own franchise cricket league called DCPL (Disabled Cricket Premier League) in the latter half of this year at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.

Turning the cards from making a movie to organising and working for the welfare of disabled athletes, he says, “‘I started Jozh Universe in 2023 after I sat with these special athletes and listened to their stories. Leave alone having a good coach to nurture their talent, they even lacked basic amenities. This moved me and I decided to I am here to provide them what they deserve in order to take their passion award.” Rajesh is planning to take these talents to a global stage, and is chalking out plans in creating a huge platform for the athletes to perform.

Talking about how he manages both filmmaking and owning a company, Rajesh explains, “It is difficult to survive in the film industry without knowing its dynamics. To be successful, a producer or a filmmaker needs to allocate proper finance to a project and complete a film in a required time. So, both these things come hand in hand, which I have a fair idea of. Similar skillset is required to run a company as well.

The filmmaker is currently working on his second film script, a romantic thriller, which is set abroad. Additionally, he has penned a sports script based on the life of a disabled cricketer and hopes to bring it to the screen in the near future.

Rajesh strongly emphasises on how society has a role in nurturing special talents. “People are still unaware of tournaments that are being conducted for specially-abled cricketers. There is a window for them to be as popular as Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma,” he adds.