City surfing school starts campaign urging movie crews to clean shoot locations

One is Thalapathy 62 starring Vijay and directed by AR Murugadoss and the other is Mani Ratnam’s Chekka Chivantha Vaanam, which stars Vijay Sethupathi and STR. Both movie crews have allegedly spoilt the beach for surfers and villagers in the community, with the Bay of Life foundation (that focuses on beach clean ups and ocean safety) using volunteers and surfers to make the area clean again. 

Showkath Jamal, who set up the surf school seven years ago, said, “In January, Murugadoss and his team erected a massive set of a ship with other décor and we knew it meant bad news. The crew didn’t allow us to take pictures but assured us there would be no problems. Ten days around, the shoot got down, but they cleaned only the reusable items – other plastic items, food, and so on were left behind in a total mess. It’s been three months since, and we are still cleaning.” 

He added that villagers and cops are paid by the crew, so there are no complaints from them. Barely a few weeks later, Mani Ratnam’s Madras Talkies were next to shoot in the area. “Though they took care to remove the props afterwards and cleared the tea cups, plastic, etc, we found plenty of shattered glass mixed with the sand. It was from a car’s windshield being broken, along with bullet shells and soda bottles, after an action scene was shot,” Jamal said. 

After yet another clean-up, he decided to write to all the actors and production teams involved to be accountable. “Vijay Sethupathi responded on Facebook saying that he was sorry and such incidents wouldn’t occur again, but there’s been no other reply. However, after getting in touch with Madras Talkies, we are hopeful that they will join us in the future clean-ups as the studio is known for maintaining standards,” he added.