Tharun Moorthy

Operation Java Moorthy's first film, Operation Java, was released in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, when film revenue was reduced across the entire industry. The film was a success despite this, resulting in Moorthy releasing a new film poster with the tagline "Those who don't want to lose". His selection of Lukman Avaran to be his lead actor after seeing his performance as the secondary best friend character in Thallumaala was initially negatively commented on by others in the film industry, with similar people claiming that Moorthy's "arrogance" is what led him to pick the same actor for his second film. He replied that it was not arrogance but "my pride" that led him to purposefully pick actors that are not already big names in the industry to help them progress as actors, since to him cinema is "not just business for us, it's also art". Consequently, all 83 characters in the film were hand-picked by Moorthy, and his production crew and avoided doing an open audition. He had difficulty, however, in obtaining a release date for the film as the lack of popular well-known actors in the production inhibited the potential audience size. Moorthy stated that his method of filmmaking involves deciding on the characters and what their faces look like, then leaving finding the corresponding actors to the casting director. Because of this, 50 of the actors in the movie are new to film, with several coming from theatre careers.

Saudi Vellakka was chosen to be screened at the 2022 International Film Festival of India (IFFI) for the Indian Panorama section and was nominated for the IFFI ICFT UNESCO Gandhi Medal. Moorthy's second film was officially released in theaters on 2 December 2022 to critical acclaim, with Indian film people such as actress Manju Warrier and director AR Murugadoss highly praising the film, and was further released on OTT services on 2 January 2023. Despite positive critical reviews and opening at the top of the box office, the film had a slow accumulation of revenue, earning just ₹87 lakhs (approximately $107,000) in its first three days.

Moorthy attributed his successes to the supporters that helped him make his films in the manner and style he desired, particularly for Saudi Vellakka. After his first film's success, many people in the film industry were pushing him to next do a "superstar" level film, but it was his producers that allowed him to instead do the type of important message stories that he cared about. He noted that while his primary goal as a filmmaker is to "entertain the audience", he hoped to also give his viewers "food for thought" about meaningful issues affecting contemporary society, such as cybercrime for Operation Java and the massive backlog of pending court cases for Saudi Vellakka.

Filmography