January 2017 marks a very important period in the history of Tamil Nadu. 10 lakh Tamils congregated to show the power of 'people' through the Jallikattu protest which caught the attention of people worldwide.
January 2017 marks a very important period in the history of Tamil Nadu. 10 lakh Tamils congregated to show the power of 'people' through the Jallikattu protest which caught the attention of people worldwide.
Lakhs of people, comprising of youth, families, celebrities and of course the student community at large participated in the Jallikattu protest, with no showman or leader to spearhead this mass movement. The largely peaceful nature of the protests received praise from all over the country and inspired the legalisation movements of several other Indian states' traditional outlawed celebrations.
The Jallikattu protest was soon crafted into a movie by M S Raj, who had worked with director Pandiraj as an assistant director. M S Raj in a tele-conversation with Simplicity talks about the movie and the problems he encountered during the making of this movie.
"The Jallikattu protest is a historic event in Tamil Nadu. It was a people's protest. After the 1960's, when we had the anti-Hindi agitations, Tamil Nadu had never seen a protest of this magnitude. At least those protests were backed by a political party. But, the Jallikattu protest did not even have a leader. It was a people's movement. The way it was organised was amazing. It was a massive protest without disturbing the public. Traffic was not affected at all and was well-planned. I wanted to record this historical event so that future generations will have a reference to look back at," said Raj.
"The film 'Marina Puratchi' puts the people behind the protest into the spotlight. The protest happened in January but the idea was conceived in December. We traced those people who began the protest. There were 18 people responsible for organising this protest. But the worst part is that they were threatened by certain forces which forced them to conceal their identities and they even had to go into hiding. We traced them, spoke to them, convinced them and only then did they agreed to speak," reveals the director.
The film talks about the politics behind the issue— the people who were really responsible for the ban on Jallikattu, the politics behind the ban and the violence that was unleashed on the final day of the protests. “We investigated this protest in depth to find answers, so this film can actually be called an investigative film. It is more an investigative docu-drama," opines M S Raj. 'Marina Puratchi' has been filmed in Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai.
Talking about the hurdles that had to be crossed during the making of the film, M S Raj reveals, "PETA was the main reason behind the ban on Jallikattu .But during my investigation, I found that they had serious hidden motives. They received crores for their campaign against Jallikattu. I filed for the Censor certificate on 28 September, 2018 and on 30th itself I received a legal notice from PETA. I am not worried about the legal ramifications.
The film was rejected twice by the Censor Board. I had to approach the Court, filed a case against the Censor Board and then the Court ordered the Censor Board to award the clearance certificate to the film. Finally, after screening the movie to a high level committee and agreeing to make some changes, the film was cleared. Marina Puratchi was supposed to be released for Pongal. Though the film got its clearance on January 17, 2019, it has now taken three months to get the certificate. It will be released on May 25," he added.
Despite all the hiccups that 'Marina Puratchi' faced on home turf, it meanwhile won accolades all over the world. It was selected for an award at the Canada Film Festival, and the movie was screened in many countries including the US, Australia and Canada.
Jallikattu protest was an apolitical protest led by Tamil youth groups in January 2017, in several locations across the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, with a few sporadic protests taking place across India, as well as overseas. The chief motivation of the protest was against the Supreme Court's order to ban Jallikattu, a traditional Tamil bull taming sport held during Pongal.
The sport is conducted annually on the second day of the Tamil month 'Thai.' The sport was banned by the Supreme Court in a decision citing cruelty to animals based on a lawsuit filed by the animal rights activists group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which asserted that the tradition violates the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (PCA). These groups also demanded that PETA be banned from India. The protests soon gained momentum and spread all over Tamil Nadu. After several days of protests, Jallikattu was finally legalised locally on January 23, when the Government of Tamil Nadu passed a bill to amend the PCA Act.