Keerthy Suresh’s Penguin will stream on Amazon Prime Video.
Keerthy Suresh feels she shoulders a lot more responsibility since winning the Best Actress National Award for her performance in Mahanati, which was based on the times and struggles of legendary actor Savitri. And that’s the reason it took her nearly two years to do another stand-alone movie.
“After the release of Mahanati, it took about six or seven months for me to find the script that I wanted. I was looking for a very good women-centric film in Tamil, like how Mahanati was for me in Telugu, and that script was Penguin. It took a while for me to meet Penguin,” she said.
Penguin is a Tamil-Telugu bilingual, which is written and directed by debutant Eashvar Karthic. It is bankrolled by Stone Bench Films Passion Studios, which is jointly owned by filmmaker Karthik Subbaraj. The trailer of the movie has already piqued the curiosity of movie buffs.
Described as a physiological thriller, the plot revolves around a mother’s struggle to secure her child from the clutches of a psychopath.
“I loved Eashvar’s narration. He narrated the script to me for over four hours. And still, I couldn’t feel it was a four-hour-long narration. And the (film’s) genre. I have not done a film in the thriller genre before. The movie is completely about motherhood. Probably, by the end of the movie, every mother is going to feel that I am a superhero,” Keerthy told indianexpress.com.
However, the actor noted that she will miss watching Penguin on the big screen. “Everything has its own advantages and disadvantages. The main thing I will miss is the ‘theater feel.’ Being a thriller film, watching it in a theater is completely different (experience). On the other side, there are great advantages of being on an OTT platform,” she added.
Penguin is the second major Tamil movie to premiere on Amazon Prime Video. As the COVID-19 situation remains grim across India, there’s no telling when would cinema halls be allowed to open for business. And the unprecedented challenge has forced filmmakers to be pragmatic about exploring unconventional venues to release their new movies.
“It has already been nearly two years since I had a release. At this point, during the lockdown, having a release is huge for me. I always think that everything happens for a good reason, and this is probably one of them,” noted Keerthy Suresh.
Last month, Jyotika’s Ponmagal Vandhal also premiered on Amazon Prime Video. And it was made available for streaming on the same day in over 200 countries.
Penguin, meanwhile, will start streaming on Amazon Prime Video from June 19.