Maamanithan by director Seenu Ramasamy, starring Vijay Sethupathi and Gayathrie Shankar, won a gold medal at this year’s Tokyo Film Awards. The filmmaker took to Twitter to make the announcement.
“Happy to share that our feature film Maamanithan won (at) Tokyo Film Awards 2022. Thanks to Producer Yuvan Shankar Raja (sic),” the director wrote in the post.
Reportedly, Maamanithan won gold in the Best Asian Film category, while Takahiro Kawabe’s Love Song won silver and Mart Bira’s Nomadic Doctor won bronze at the event. .
Maamanithan tells the story of an ordinary guy, who wishes to provide a good education for his children by getting them admitted to a private school. To increase his income, he makes a deal with a real estate developer and gets scammed. The rest of the film deals with the problem he faces. Vijay Sethupathi plays the role of a rickshaw driver and Gayathrie plays his wife and also a mother of two.
Maamanithan garnered huge praise from various quarters after its release. Director Shankar called it a “realistic classic”, adding that Vijay Sethupathi’s brilliant performance deserved a national award.
Maamanithan stars the late KPAC Lalitha, Guru Somasundaram, and Shaji Chen, among others. The film was released in theaters on June 24 and is currently streaming on Aha Tamil.
OTTplay’s review of the film read, “There is a real problem with the storytelling style. At all the crucial moments, since the voice-over narrations unfold in flashbacks, we lose the point of view from which the story is being told. This means that the audience is not allowed to be directly part of the story. All we hear are second-hand experiences that aren’t necessarily authentic.
Additionally, OTTplay’s review added, “Vijay Sethupathi star would have made an extraordinary film if Seenu Ramasamy had shifted his focus to Savitri’s (Gayathrie) ordeals.”
Maamanithan, produced by Yuvan Shankar Raja, was filmed by Sukumar and edited by Sreekar Prasad.
