Vaathi trailer: Dhanush’s film is about privatisation of education

The trailer of Dhanush’s upcoming Tamil-Telugu bilingual film Vaathi was released on Wednesday. Going by the visuals, the film looks like one man’s fight against a system that thrives on privatisation of education.

The film features Dhanush in the role of a maths teacher. Directed by Venky Atluri, the film has been simultaneously shot in Telugu and Tamil. It’s titled SIR in Telugu. Both versions of the film will release worldwide on February 17.

The trailer opens with Samuthirakani’s character talking about education being a nonprofitable entity in India. He says that government schools will soon be taken over by private schools.

Samuthirakani plays the chairman of one of the leading educational institutions in the country. Cut to a few shots later, Dhanush is sent to one of the government schools as part of the faculty. He’s assigned to that duty by Samuthirakani.

Going by the rest of the trailer, it can be understood Dhanush turns against Samuthirakani’s idea of turning the government schools into another money-making private school and looks like the film will be about their clash.

Talking about the film, Venky Atluri recently said in a press interaction that some incidents from his life when he was a student inspired him to make Vaathi.

“I finished my class in 12th around 1998. That’s when the private schools were really flourishing and were slowly taking over the government schools. It had become a big issue back then and even got the government involved to sort this issue. Some of these events inspired me to make Vaathi,” Venky added.

He further added that the film, which is set in the 1990s, will shine the spotlight on privatisation of the education system and how one man fought against it. The film will mark Dhanush’s debut in the Telugu industry.