A dream death song highlight of 'Ammini': Lakshmy Ramakrishnan

Actor-filmmaker Lakshmy Ramakrishnan has completed shooting the talkie portion of her upcoming Tamil directorial "Ammini". She says a dream death song in the movie will be a major highlight.

"All of us dream about good things in life. But the protagonist in 'Ammini' dreams about her death, (and that is) in the form of a song. There's a reason why she picturises her death and feels proud about it. It gives us reasons to celebrate life. This song will be the highlight of the film," Lakshmy told IANS.

The film's composer K has roped in 80-year Gulab Band to add a new "flavour" to the song, which features the voice of singer Mukesh.

"We have already recorded the song. It has come out well. I'm taking a short trip to the US. As soon as I return, I'll shoot the song. The rest of the movie's shoot has already been completed," she said.

Talking about the inspiration behind the idea to include a dream death song, Lakshmy said: "The last procession of late filmmaker K. Balachander inspired me. Thousands of unknown faces from outside the industry had come to bid him adieu. These were the people who even celebrated his death because they missed him dearly.

"For one second, I felt I should go away with such fanfare. It was a peculiar feeling because nobody thinks about death even for a minute but that was the trigger behind the thought to create situation like this in the film."

"Ammini" is based on the inspiring yet funny attitude towards life of a 79-year-old woman ragpicker whom Lakshmy had met in real life.

Besides directing the film, Lakshmy has played the lead in the film and admits it was "extremely challenging" to do both.

"I've never done something like this before. I play a north Madras resident, who works as a help in a government hospital. I had to pick up on a new accent and change my body language to suit the character," said Lakshmy, who felt nobody else could've played the titular role better because she had "conceived" it and "lived" with it.

Produced by Ven Govinda, who also felt only Lakshmy could do justice to the protagonist, the film also features senior actress Subbalakshmi, Nithin Satya and Balaji in important roles.