MEET KALAINITHAN
A QUIET, UNSETTLING REBELLION
In Karupy, director Kalainithan Kalaichelvan spotlights our attitudes towards ageing, mental health, autonomy, and the emotional baggage passed down through generations.
Karupy is set to make its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
Set during a 65th birthday celebration that spirals into emotional chaos, Karupy follows a Tamil matriarch who shocks her family by announcing she plans to end her life that evening. Intimate, unsettling, and laced with dark humour, the film explores generational trauma, ageing, and the quiet rebellion of a woman reclaiming control over her own narrative.
Kalainithan Kalaichelvan raises questions and spotlights our attitudes towards ageing, mental health, autonomy, and the emotional weight passed down through generations, especially from mothers and grandmothers.
He wanted to challenge the silence often found in South Asian families around the things left unsaid.
Karupy is a woman who has spent a lifetime living for others. This story imagines what happens when she finally decides to live – and die – on her own terms. It’s about legacy, dysfunction, and what we inherit emotionally from the people we love most. Karupy is about the courage to confront life’s most painful truths and the beauty and ugliness that can emerge in the process.
Name: Kalainithan. It’s a combination of both my parents’ names. “Kalai” means art in Tamil.
Currently: My latest short film, Karupy, will premiere at TIFF during its 50th year. The film is an absurd, multi-generational portrait of a troubled matriarch who makes an unexpected announcement at her own birthday celebration.
My life in 50 words (or less!): I was born and raised in Scarborough. Fell in love with movies as a kid and decided I’d spend my life chasing it. Here I am, still chasing...
The director in me took flight when: I picked up a camera and learned to use it.
The creative in me wishes: To one day make something I’m truly pleased with.
One often encounters silence in South Asian families around the things left unsaid.
My favourite line in poetry: Honestly, I couldn’t really answer this. But here’s a song lyric I like: “Now my bitter hands cradle broken glass of what was everything.”
Favourite colours: Dark red, any shade of green.
Favourite designer: None in particular.
Favourite movie: Hey Ram.
Favourite book: Blood Meridian.
Favourite TV show: Community.
Favourite ice cream flavour: Coffee.
Favourite cuisines: South Indian and Thai.
Favourite restaurant: There’s only one restaurant that I would be willing to call my favourite and it’s in Kerala. But for the life of me I can’t remember the name...and this will forever haunt me.
Favourite activities: Watching movies, writing, eating out with friends.
I hang out: With good people in Irish pubs.
I’m freaked out by: How fast time flies. Also, centipedes.
I need: More time to dream.
My role models: My parents.
Tips to save the planet: Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Be critical.
In a perfect world: Art wouldn’t need to justify itself.
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