Mani Ratnam and Jayendra Panchapakesan bankroll Navarasa to support Kollywood

Bejoy Nambiar, Arvind Swamy, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Karthik Subbaraj, Karthick Naren, K V Anand, Ponram, Rathindran Prasad and Halitha Shameem will be directing short films in Netflix anthology Navarasa.

To provide financial assistance to members of the Tamil film industry, whose livelihoods have been severely affected by the outbreak of the coronavirus, directors Mani Ratnam and Jayendra Panchapakesan have come up with a novel solution. The filmmakers will be producing an anthology called Navarasa for Netflix. And the proceeds from the movie will go to those who have suffered due to unemployment during the lockdown.

Navarasa will see the coming together of some of the most prominent directors, who will make nine short films based on nine ‘rasas’ (emotions). Bejoy Nambiar, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Karthik Subbaraj, Karthick Naren, K.V. Anand, Ponram, Rathindran Prasad and Halitha Shameem will be directing short films in this anthology. Also, actor Arvind Swamy will make his directorial debut with a short film in the anthology.

In addition to the directors, about 40 top actors of the industry and hundreds of technicians will work on the project.

Netflix confirmed that the cast and crew of the anthology will be providing their services pro-bono.

“We have always loved to brainstorm and come up with unique ideas to raise money for deserving causes. This time the brainstorming was for the cause of our own industry, to soothe and try and alleviate to some extent the agony of our people who had no work for months. The idea of making short films and raising money through them for this cause was born on one such brainstorming evening. We were thrilled when the idea resonated well instantly with leading directors, actors and technicians of the industry that we approached. The idea of Navarasa was a spark when we discussed it and the industry has come together to make it glow, give it soul and make it count for its people,” said Mani Ratnam and Jayendra Panchapakesan in a statement.

Details about the cast and crew of Navarasa:

Cast

Arvind Swami, Suriya, Siddharth, Vijay Sethupathi, Prakash Raj, Saravanan, Alagam Perumal, Revathy, Nithya Menen, Parvathy Thiruvothu, Aishwarya Rajessh, Poorna, Riythvika, Prasanna, Vikranth, Simha, Gautham Karthik, Ashok Selvan, Robo Shankar, Ramesh Thilak, Sananth, Vidhu and Sreeram.

Writers

Pattukottai Prabhakar, Selvaa, Madhan Karky and Someetharan.

Music composers

AR Rahman, D Imman, Ghibran, Arul Dev, Karthik, Ron Ethan Yohann, Govind Vasantha and Justin Prabhakaran.

Cinematographers

Santosh Sivan, Balasubramaniem, Manoj Paramahamsa, Abinandhan Ramanujam, Shreyaas Krishna, Harshvir Oberai, Sujith Sarang, V Babu and Viraj Singh.

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