Kumki (2012)

Interesting facts

Kumki is a 2012 Indian Tamil-language adventure romantic drama film written and directed by Prabhu Solomon. Produced by Thirrupathi Brothers, the film stars Vikram Prabhu, in his acting debut, while Lakshmi Menon, Thambi Ramaiah and Ashvin Raja appear in prominent roles. It revolves around a mahout and his elephant, who is used to guide other wild animals to minimise the destruction of properties and fields of nearby villages.

Production

In June 2011, it was announced that Prabhu Solomon was directing a "love story set in a village in the forest area where elephants roam freely, creating man-animal conflicts" and was based on a real life incident. Despite reports that it was titled Komban, the title was later confirmed to be Kumki. The film was presented by N. Lingusamy and produced by N. Subash Chandrabose under Thirrupathi Brothers.

Solomon considered Kumki a research-based film similar to his previous Mynaa (2010), which served as a campaign to save the elephants which had been portrayed in bad light owing to incidents such as straying into villages and violent attacks, but neither consider deforestation and encroachment of forest areas lead to this situation.

During an interaction with Nikhil Raghavan of The Hindu, Solomon felt that the success of Mynaa was due to his creative control—as he was the director and producer of the film—which helped him to pay more attention to detail. As Kumki was an even bigger venture he "didn't want anything to go wrong". At that time, Lingusamy's interest in producing the venture was considered a delight for Solomon.

A 12 feet (3.7 m) tall elephant named Manickam was brought from Ottapalam for this film. Though established actors wanted to be cast in the lead role without offering renumeration, Solomon wanted a new face for the role of Bomman. After 60 people were auditioned for the role, Vikram Prabhu (son of actor Prabhu) who participated in the auditions was selected. Vikram, a B. A.

Vikram sported a rugged look wearing a beard and moustache. Before filming, Vikram went to a training camp for 15 days in Ottapalam so that he could get full-fledged preparations on how to train elephants and further asked to polish his gymnastic skills so that his physique could be maintained. Lakshmi Menon was cast for the role of the tribal girl, Alli, after she featured in a cover of a Malayalam magazine that got Solomon's attention.

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