15 years of Chennai 600028: Venkat Prabhu recollects his directorial debut

Director Venkat Prabhu, whose last outing was the Kajal Aggarwal-starrer web series, Live Telecast, for Disney+ Hotstar, completes 15 years as a filmmaker. His first film, the runaway hit, Chennai 600028, went on floors 15 years ago on this date. He took to Twitter to share the excitement and posted a few pictures, too, from the set. His tweet read, "Wow time flies!! 15 years ago today first time I said “start camera action”!! God and u guys are very kind and still keeping me going!! Forever indebted to u guys for giving me a place in ur heart. Love u." 

The trendsetting movie, which was set against the backdrop of cricket, was a box office success and appealed to critics, too. It also went on to fetch the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Family Film. A decade later, in 2016, Venkat made a sequel to the film, titled Chennai 600028 II: Second Innings, which was also lapped up by the audience. Produced by SPB Charan, Chennai 600028 had Jai, Shiva, Premji, Nithin Sathya, Aravind Akash, Vijay Vasanth, Vijayalakshmi and Ajay Raj playing lead roles in it, with sensational music by Yuvan Shankar Raja.

Venkat, who later went on to make films with Ajith, Suriya and Karthi, has Silambarasan-starrer Maanaadu ready for a theatrical release. There are reports that the action film, which has SJ Suryah and Kalyani Priyadarshan, too, in lead roles, may hit screens in October. He had also made a segment in the Tamil anthology, titled Kutty Story, which released earlier this year. His long-pending film, Party, which has his brother and actor Premgi Amaren composing music, is yet to see the light of the day. He is currently producing Kasada Thapara, a multi-starrer Tamil anthology, which is expected to release soon.