Chennai theatres welcome print projection, set to screen Tamil re-releases

In a few Chennai theatres, print projection is making a comeback. A few memorable Tamil films such as ‘Minsara Kanavu’ and ‘Kaadhal Mannan’ will be re-released.

Ajith will woo Simran, and Vijay will sing a song for Richa Pallod. This March, it is time to go back in time and revisit some memorable old Tamil films on the big screen.

At Chennai’s GK Cinemas, March is exciting because of multiple reasons. But a brand new release is not one of them.

“With exams around the corner, this has traditionally been a bad month for cinema, and thus, we usually have re-releases that fetch us footfall,” explains Ruban Mathivanan of GK Cinemas. This time, however, he has reason to celebrate: not only will he showcase a special playback series, but he has also enabled his main screen with a print projector, thus bringing back to theatres a technology that has not been in vogue in the last decade or so. “I was lucky that my father had stored the old projectors carefully. But we had to put in a lot of time and effort in getting it in shape as finding spare parts was tough.”

At the forefront of this playback series at GK Cinemas is S Kamalakannan, who has been its theatre operator for the last 12 years. Kamalakannan has been part of various theatre projector rooms since 1984 and has seen the winds of change. “It’s nice to handle a machine I have handled when I was much younger,” says Kamalakannan, even as he feeds in a film reel into it, “I’m looking forward to seeing how today’s audiences react to the print and sound quality of these films.”

After a year of working on it, Ruban is ready to showcase films on it. He hopes to play Minsara Kanavu, the 1997 film starring Aravind Swami, Kajol and Prabhu Deva, and Ajith-starrer Kaadhal Mannan, among others. “I’m also trying to source a print of Lesa Lesa,” he says.

With tickets priced at ₹80, these re-releases hope to evoke nostalgia among older audiences and provide a new experience for younger audiences who are used to consuming films played through digital projectors.

The re-releases trend has clicked big-time among fans of Tamil cinema, who caught up with the release of films such as 3, Aalavandan, Baba and Vaaranam Aayiram, among others. However, it is a “passing fad”, as Ruban points out. “The selection of films is vital. If you observe carefully, it is films such as 3 and Vaaranam Aayiram that have done exceedingly well – and that’s because of chartbuster songs in them.”