Tamil director Mari Selvaraj who hails from Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu is known to bring real life stories from that region into his films. While his debut film Pariyerum Perumal had the backdrop of the government law college in Tirunelveli, his sophmore Karnan depicted the 1995 Kodiyankulam violence. Mari Selvaraj is currently gearing up for the release of Maamannan with Udhayanidhi Stalin, Keerthy Suresh, Vadivelu and AR Rahman. The filmmaker's next is his delayed project with Dhruv Vikram, which is yet another story from the Southern most part of Tamil Nadu. 

#MCExclusive - #MariSelvaraj - #DhruvVikram’s new film which was put on hold in the year 2021 for #Maamannan will resume from April 2023. Music director yet to be locked.

Mari will be completing a film for Hotstar before starting #Dhruv Film. pic.twitter.com/tqradtlLHb

— MovieCrow (@MovieCrow) November 1, 2022

A sports biopic on Kanyakumari based Indian Kabbadi player S Rajarathinam, Mari Selvaraj's movie with Dhruv Vikram was announced in December, 2020. Now the film is all set to begin shooting in April, 2023. 

In 1990, Kabadi was included in the Asian games for the first time and S Rajarathinam captained a team that gave India its only gold medal that year. The now 62 year old also captained India to a gold in the 1994 Asian games. Notably, S Rajarathinam came from very humble beginnings and picked up Kabaddi playing barefooted on clay courts of his Ganapathipuram village.