Vallinam

Vallinam is a 2014 Indian Tamil-language sports film written and directed by Arivazhagan and produced by Aascar Ravichandran. The film stars Nakul and newcomer Mrudhula Basker, while Atul Kulkarni, Siddharth Jonnalagadda, Anaswara Kumar, Amzath Khan, and Jagan play supporting roles. The music was composed by S. Thaman with cinematography by K. M. Bhaskaran and editing by V. J. Sabu Joseph. The flm released on 28 February 2014. V. J. Sabu Joseph received the National Film Award for Best Editing at the 61st National Film Awards ceremony.

Plot
Krishna (Nakul) and Shiva (Krishna) are childhood friends studying in the same college and prominent basketball players preparing for a national-level basketball tournament. Following the events of the college, Shiva dies from a heart attack because he was hit by a basketball shot by Krishna. This makes Krishna end his college career. He then joins a new college where a basketball game is teased by a cricket team there. The story lines up when Krishna takes on basketball again and wins the national-level tournament.

Cast

 * Nakul as Krishna
 * Mrudhula Basker as Meera
 * Atul Kulkarni as Coach
 * Siddharth Jonnalagadda as Vamsi
 * Anaswara Kumar as Anu
 * Amzath Khan as Guna
 * Jagan as Jagan
 * Jayaprakash as Krishnamurthy
 * Santhana Bharathi as Puzhaldasan
 * Saravana Prakash as Balaji
 * Y. Gee. Mahendra as Venkatachalam
 * Anupama Kumar
 * Chandru
 * Mathivanan Rajendran
 * Mippu as Train passenger
 * Sampath Ram
 * Kreshna as Shiva (Cameo)
 * Aadhi as Basketball coach (Cameo)
 * RJ Balaji as Show host (Cameo)

Production
The film was earlier titled as Acham Thavir and planned with Arulnithi in the lead role, who later opted out. This film revolves around a basketball player and Nakul underwent special training to "ensure that he lived the role rather than act".

Telugu actress Bindu Madhavi was initially signed to portray the lead female character. However, reports in November 2011 confirmed that she was dropped from the project since the director and the crew were not impressed with her performance. She was subsequently replaced film by a newcomer Mrudhula, while other reports during production claimed that Nakul had been replaced by Jai, although this proved untrue. Latest addition Marathi actor Atul Kulkarni is playing a crucial role in this film. Siddharth Jonnalagadda was selected to play another villain after Arivazhagan spotted him on one of the Life Before Wedding (2011) posters while scouting locations with Praveen Sattaru in Hyderabad.

During production, the makers of the film ran into crowd trouble with students attempting to get autographs from Nakul when he was preparing for the shoot, they were subsequently prevented in doing so from the crew of the film prompting a student protest. The team worked for 72 hours without break for a particular scene which was shot near the Chengalpet railway station.

Soundtrack
The soundtrack was composed by S. Thaman collaborating with Arivazhagan for second time. Kamal Haasan was said to be approached to sing a song in the film which proved false.

Release
Although completed way before in early 2013, the film's theatrical release was delayed due to unknown reasons. It finally released on 28 February 2014. Baradwaj Rangan wrote in The Hindu, "Arivazhagan isn’t a lazy filmmaker, and at a time when most Tamil films have begun to look like flatly lit television serials, without the slightest interest in framing and staging, this quality cannot be underestimated".

61st National Film Awards

 * National Film Award for Best Editing – V. J. Sabu Joseph