Thiagarajan Kumararaja

Thiagarajan Kumararaja Biography

Thiagarajan Kumararaja is a National award winning film director and screenwriter associated with Tamil cinema. His debut film - Aaranya Kaandam (2011) earned him the Indira Gandhi Award for Best First Film of a Director at National Film Awards 2012. This gangster film is supposedly the first neo-noir film in Tamil cinema and it was the debut actor Guru Somasundaram who stole the show. The movie starred Jackie Shroff, Ravi Krishna and Sampath Raj in lead roles. The movie also bagged National Film Awards for Best Editing.

Thiagarajan Kumararaja was born and brought up in Chennai. He was born in the year 1976.Though he enrolled for a Visual Communications course at Loyola College Chennai he dropped out to pursue a career in films. Thus in the late 1990s he worked as a freelance copywriter and photographer for a while. Then he did ad films and one documentary film on South Indian Temples, Sthala Puranam for Vijay TV. In 2007, he wrote the dialogues for the movie - Oram Po for the debut work of Pushkar-Gayathri, who later introduced him to producer S. P. B. Charan who gave him the project - Aaranya Kaandam.

Though the movie was a bit delayed, Thiagarajan worked hard for each and every frame of the movie. He spotted the pivot artist Guru Somasundaram while playing the role of Chandrahari in Koothupattarai troupe’s play by the same name. Guru has been a leading artist of the troupe for one decade. Dialogues were written the way Guru performed in Chandrahari. Guru lost around 6-7 kilos of weight and grew a ‘Ma Po Si’ moustache for the role. He also worked out on mannerisms and body language. Guru surprised audience with his amazing range of acting and gained popularity with this single hit. The director also bagged Vijay Award for Best Story, Screenplay Writer apart from two nominations at SIIMA awards. In 2015, he wrote additional dialogues for Ajith starrer - Yennai Arindhaal.

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Updated: February 03, 2016