A birthday gift for my mentor, says Vetrimaran

CHENNAI: Veteran director Balu Mahendra couldn't have wished for a better birthday gift two of his erstwhile assistants Vetrimaran and Seenu Ramasamy won national honours for their films. While Vetrimaran won the best director and the best original screenplay awards for Aadukalam', Seenu Ramasamy's Thenmerku Paruvakaatru' was named the best Tamil film.
Vetrimaran, who worked with the veteran for 10 years and assisted him on two films and other television projects, says, "I was very surprised to hear that I had got the award.But I am happy as the announcement came on my mentor's birthday. It is the best birthday gift I could give him."
Vetrimaran, who directed Pollathavan' earlier, says, "This is not an award for me, but for my entire team. I deserve only 1% of the credit, the rest is for them. I am just the face of the team."
That might be true if the award was for best director alone, but he won it for best original screenplay too. To that, he says, "No script is written by one person. A team discusses it, thrashes out the problems, refines it... The award goes to my four-member team of writers, even though I was credited for it."
Aadukalam' also won the award for the best editing for T E Kishore, who was the associate editor of Pollathavan'. Aadukalam' is the second film for Kishore too, who had edited Eeram' earlier.