• www.kanchivaramthefilm.com

Priyadarshan, the famed director of such commercial Indian cinema hits as VIRASAT and GARAM MASALA, returns to his South Indian roots with KANCHIVARAM, a combination of Bollywood flair, social commitment and film-noir grit that follows one man's political awakening in 1940's Tamil Nadu. Swapping Bollywood's typical Day-Glo vibrancy for a strikingly earthy, rain-soaked aesthetic, Priyadarshan delivers a film of astonishing visual flair, complete with deep-focus cinematography and an attention to color, darkness and light that wouldn't look out of place in Orson Welles or John Alton films.

Prakash Raj (a character actor well-known for his many villain roles) is Vengadam, a respected, humble silk weaver in the Tamil town of Kanchivaram, heart of the region's exploitative silk industry. Slaving away, Vengadam and his colleagues know that they will never earn enough to afford the saris they weave, a situation that soon becomes challenged by the arrival of a communist organizer. Falling under the spell of the man's rhetoric–and promising his own daughter a silk sari for her wedding day–Vengadam feverishly devotes himself to the cause, but must eventually decide which cause–the political or the personal–to ultimately embrace.

Born in Kerala, director Priyadarshan began his career in the Malayaman film industry. Over a two-decade career he's made over 74 films in multiple Indian languages, from Hindi slapstick comedies to Malayaman romantic melodramas to Tamil crime-world epics. KANCHIVARAM is a breed apart, a politically charged Tamil CITIZEN KANE, and a striking union of the commercial and the committed in Indian cinema.