Jiiva's Thagappan Goes to Floors in Madurai

Thagappan, Jiiva’s new film for Lark Studios, began shooting in Madurai today with a pooja attended by the unit and a stream of film-industry well-wishers. The camera rolls from here in a single continuous schedule across Madurai and its surrounding belt, an increasingly rare way to make a star film and usually a sign the makers want the milieu to seep into every frame.

The name to watch here is Ra. Venkat, who wrote and directs. His Kida was one of those small films critics kept pressing into people’s hands, and Thagappan is the leap that follows: a lead actor with two decades of goodwill, a production house on a roll, and a canvas built around the father-son bond. The title, Tamil for father, states the film’s centre plainly. Lark is pitching it as an emotional drama about family ties rooted in the Madurai soil, aimed as much at family audiences as at the young crowd.

For Jiiva this is a return to the register that has served him well lately, coming off the success of TTT and going straight back to a rooted, high-emotion story. Rajisha Vijayan plays the female lead, pairing with him for the first time.

The first-look poster leans all the way into that world: a village guardian deity on a blood-red field, rows of tridents massed behind, the promise of a Madurai story told from the inside. Lark Studios, the banner behind Garudan and Maaman, produces with K. Kumar backing the project. M. Sukumar handles cinematography, Nagooran Ramachandran edits, and Think Music holds the audio rights.