Outside her enormous body of work in films, Suhasini Maniratnam is someone who’s known around the industry for her vibrant personality, social ventures and ability to pull things together when the going gets tough, in short, she is everyone’s agony aunt!
“And that’s what led me along with a few other people to come together and establish, Talent South. I had been doing all this unofficially for almost a decade now, and figured it was about time to get more organised and do it through a proper platform,” the actress begins, talking about her new venture.
“Essentially, we are an artists’ entertainment collaborative looking to promote and bridge talent, young and old across the world. A guiding light for them if you will! We keep hearing filmmakers up north want to work with actors in Chennai; someone like author Chetan Bhagat wants to visit; or if a foreign project is looking to collaborate with anyone here, who do they approach? That’s where we step in! Why, just recently a French film wanted Tamil male and female leads. Chennai has amazing talent, but in terms of organisation… not so much,” Suhasini explains.
Talent South recently conducted the city’s first-ever Crafts Film Festival, showcasing shorts films and panel discussions that paid tribute to artisans in the field, and Suhasini is even more excited about their next undertaking, “Yes, we are thrilled to be in association with the Gollapudi Srinivas Award. I have worked with Gollapudi Maruti Rao sir in many films, and both Mani (her husband) and I are close to the family. The occasion in itself has the essence of such inspiration, an award dedicated to someone who lost their life, given to celebrating the birth of a new life in the industry. It’s a wonderful celebration; the likes of Abhishek Bachchan, Mahesh Manjrekar, R. Madhavan, Ramesh Aravind, and so on will be participating. We also have Rajiv Menon’s fascinating surprise titled Scent of Vinyl, and singers Karthik and Bombay Jayshree performing as well.”
“The team is comprised of Maala Mannian who brings in lots of television experience, Gopi Krishnan from the I.T industry, Nithya Balakrishnan of Madras Talkies, VJ Ramya Subramanian, who of course is renowned for her connections, and me. The idea is to unite artists from every field and keep promoting them just a continuation of the journey I undertook many years ago,” she quips, adding that another interesting upcoming project on her hands is From Cauvery to Kodambakkam an experience that traces the evolution of classical music into films.
On a more personal note, Suhasini is keeping busy mulling over films, both feature and shorts, as well as a dance initiative. “But nothing’s finalised yet. Balancing all these different facets of my life is something I thoroughly enjoy, and nothing satisfies the creative urge than everything coming together!” she signs off.
