'Thandavam' opening overshadowed by script row

Vikram-starrer ‘Thandavam’, directed by A.L. Vijay, had a grand opening on Friday (Sept.28) but the event was overshadowed by the resignation of director Ameer as general secretary of the Directors Association the previous day over the issue of the authorship of the film’s script’. He sent the resignation letter to directors Prabhu Solomon and Samuthirakani, the vice-presidents of the Association.

In a statement, Ameer said assistant director Ponnusamy had claimed that it was his script that Vijay used to make ‘Thandavam’. But it was A.L.Vijay who had registered the same script with the Film Writers Association. Ponnusamy was not a member of the Writers Association. Nor had he registered the script with that association. The Directors Association had been going into the issue for the last two months.

Ameer further alleged that six members of the executive committee of the Directors Association had misled Ponnusamy and taken him on the wrong path. They had misused the letter pad of the Association. They had also approached courts but in vain. As the tide turned against them, they had trained their guns on him (Ameer) and carried on a vilification campaign against him charging him with favouring Vijay. In protest against this, he had sent in his resignation, Ameer stated in his statement.

In a parallel development, the six directors who supported Ponnusamy _Balamurali Varman, Iyinthukovilan, Nagendran, Jagadeesan, Vijayashankar and Kamalakannan _ resigned from the executive committee of the Directors Association. They claimed that joint secretary Thambidurai had also sent in his resignation. They announced that about 1,000 assistant directors would picket the Association’ office.

As ‘Thandavam’ hit the screens across the state, director Vijay in a press release said he was deeply saddened and appealed to Ameer to reconsider his decision and come back to the association. He said Ameer had played a big role in resolving the issue by making sure that both the opposing parties were given a fair deal without any favoritism. Ameer had put on hold all his other works for a month and was really interested in solving this issue amicably, Vijay added.

The action committee of the Directors Association is expected to meet in a couple of days to take a decision on Ameer’s resignation. Click the Movie button below for more info:
Thandavam