Con City Marks 25 Days, and Vadivukkarasi Steals the Room

A film about a family that finds a money-printing machine has just done the one thing money cannot buy anymore: it kept a small film in cinemas for 25 days. Con City opened on June 26, and the team came together this week to mark the run and thank the press and audiences who carried it there by word of mouth. It was billed as a thanksgiving, and for once the word fit, because the afternoon belonged less to the numbers than to the people who turned up to be grateful.

Vadivukkarasi took the room. The veteran, who has more than a thousand films behind her, stood up and said she feels as though she has been given a second life, and then told everyone why. A group of people from the industry, she said, spent lakhs on her recovery and gave her back the years she is now spending on sets. She named them one by one, and she wanted the media to carry it, because gratitude that stays private helps no one. Then she made a request that landed harder than any thank-you. Do not just write that Vadivukkarasi acted well, she said. Write that she should be given more work. That one line is what gets an artist the next role.

Director Harish Durairaj carried the same thread. He recalled meeting her in hospital, before the shoot, when she told him she wanted to die on a film set rather than anywhere else. He said his eyes filled up when he heard it, and that on the last day of filming he promised her the film would make everyone talk about her. Twenty-five days later, that is exactly what happened. For a debutant, Harish spent most of his time at the microphone thanking others: the producers who wired money on faith after a single narration, the technicians across a 55-day shoot, and the press he credited with keeping a content-led film alive in an era when small titles vanish to streaming in a week.

Arjun Das, playing his first solo lead and his first father, described the few minutes he spent outside the theatre after the first screening as the nerves of a student waiting for results. When the press walked out smiling, he said, it became a memory he will keep. He thanked the long line of collaborators from Kaithi onwards, singled out the child actor Akhilan who called him “appa” from the first day, and returned to Vadivukkarasi, whose habit of finishing every scene in a single take stayed with him. It was Arjun, the makers noted, who insisted every cast member’s name share the poster with his own. Yogi Babu, shooting in Hyderabad, could not attend, but Arjun read a message of thanks on his behalf.

Music director Sean Roldan was disarmingly honest: he had expected an even bigger reception. Still, he said, watching a debut director’s first film become a genuine hit gives him more joy than he can measure, and he sees pan-India work in Harish’s future. The debut actor Sadha, moved to the edge of tears, spoke of strangers stopping him in six cities, and one mother who blessed him with sacred ash on his forehead. Kalki Raja, Aditya Kathir, Ragu, Iman Annachi and lyricist Mohan Raj added their thanks, and Vidivi Ganesh got a laugh recalling the iPhone the director had promised him if the film worked, and duly delivered.

Con City reached about 300 screens worldwide through a T-Series release and heads to Netflix next, but the 25-day theatrical run is the number the team came to celebrate. For a story about counterfeit currency, the real win was the kind you cannot print: a full house, staying full, for the better part of a month.