''Uchi Veyil'' () is a 1990 Indian
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
People, culture and language
* Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia
**Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka
** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...
-language
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...
directed by
Jayabharathi
Jayabharathi (born 28 June 1954 as Lekshmi Bharathi) is an Indian actress and two-time recipient of the Kerala State Film Award, Kerala State Film Award for Best Actress and National Film Award – Special Mention (feature film), Nationa ...
.
Cast
* Kuppuswamy as Duraiswamy
*
Vijay as Shankar
*
Srividya
Srividya (24 July 1953 – 19 October 2006), was an Indian actress best known for her work predominantly in Malayalam and Tamil films, along with few Telugu, Kannada and Hindi films. In a career spanning for 40 years, she had acted in more t ...
*
Delhi Ganesh
Ganesan Mahadevan (1 August 1944 – 9 November 2024), known by his stage name Delhi Ganesh, was an Indian actor who mostly acted in supporting roles in Tamil cinema and serials. He was well known for the versatility of roles he played during h ...
as Sabhapathy
Production
Shot in 13 days, ''Uchi Veyil'' was directed by
Jayabharathi
Jayabharathi (born 28 June 1954 as Lekshmi Bharathi) is an Indian actress and two-time recipient of the Kerala State Film Award, Kerala State Film Award for Best Actress and National Film Award – Special Mention (feature film), Nationa ...
, the screenplay was written by Ravindran Ramamurthy based on a story by
Indira Parthasarathy
R. Parthasarathy, commonly known as Indira Parthasarathy or Ee. Paa., is an Indian author and playwright who writes in Tamil. He has published 16 novels, 10 plays, anthologies of short stories, and essays. He is best known for his plays, "Auran ...
,
and produced by T. M. Sundaram under Jwala Film on a shoestring budget of ₹4.8 lakh (worth ₹1.2 crore in 2021 prices) within 8 days.
Debutant Kuppuswamy who was 75 years old at that time and was struggling for so many years to become an actor in films was chosen as lead actor of the film. Cinematography was handled by Ramesh Vyas, and editing by Balu Shankar.
The score was composed by
L. Vaidyanathan
Lakshminarayana Vaidyanathan (; ; 9 April 1942 – 19 May 2007) was an acclaimed musicologist, music director and composer, trained in the classical Carnatic music tradition. Vaidyanathan was born in Chennai to V. Lakshminarayana, and Seethalak ...
. The film had no songs or
star
A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...
actors.
Release and reception
The film was screened at the
International Film Festival of India
The International Film Festival of India (IFFI), founded in 1952, is an annual film festival currently held in Goa, on the western coast of India. The festival aims at providing a common platform for the cinemas of the world to project the excel ...
at Calcutta, and the
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...
, both in 1990. It was positively received by critics, particularly David Overby
and Suze of ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
''.
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
*
External links
* {{IMDb title
1990 drama films
1990 films
1990s Indian films
1990s Tamil-language films
Films directed by Jayabharathi (director)
Indian drama films
Tamil-language Indian films