If there is one thing that everyone in Coimbatore has done at some point, it is crunching their way through Annapoorna’s ghee roast. Or punching holes with their fingers into golden crisp pooris and seeing steam curl up from within, before wolfing them down with potato masala. The restaurant chain is synonymous with the city, so much so that it is among the first things that crop up at the mention of Coimbatore. “Annapoorna is celebrating 50 years and got in touch with us to make a film on it,” says photographer Amar Ramesh, who runs Studio A and is the executive producer of the film Annapoorna, the Pride of Coimbatore .
The documentary film, directed by Maverick Prem, creative head at Studio A, and filmed by Vinoth RJ, Vivi Raaj, Aravind Naresh, and Gokul Nath N, is 15 minutes long and is being screened by the Thinnai Talkies initiative.
“We spent three months on the film,” recalls Prem, who has his roots in Kovilpatti. His wife is from Coimbatore and he knows how people there value Annapoorna. “Annapoorna’s food is a reflection of Coimbatore’s soft nature,” he says.
Summing up the iconic restaurant’s history, spirit, customer base, and people behind it within a short documentary was quite a task, according to Prem.
“We had to show something intangible through the visual medium. There was so much to show, so much to tell,” adds the 32-year-old. More than the actual shoot, that took place over three sessions of four to five days each, Prem says that it was the pre-production work, during which the team spent time in the restaurant to soak in its mood, that consumed a lot of time.
Besides witnessing mammoth quantities of idlis appearing amidst clouds of steam, Prem got to see first-hand the planning that goes into cooking dizzying quantities of food. “Annapoorna has been operating with a centralised kitchen from as early as the 1980s,” he says. “Back then, people would hardly have thought that something like that was possible. But the restaurant came up with the idea to maintain the same taste in all their 19 branches in Coimbatore.” Prem and team have documented the numerous tins that leave the kitchen bearing hot sambar by the litre. “Cooking starts at 3 am and food is dispatched from the centralised kitchen at 5.15 am, like clockwork,” he explains.
The film will also talk about the ‘firsts’ of Annapoorna, “Such as how they introduced the small, slightly deep plates to eat sambaridli in and two spoons to eat it with.”
Of course, they got to eat a lot of food in the process. “We were hungry all the time,” laughs Prem.
Annapoorna, the Pride of Coimbatore will be screened on November 5 at 6.30 pm, at Studio A, PS Sivasamy Road, Mylapore. Tickets are priced at ₹400 each. For tickets, visit https://bit.ly/thinnaitalkies-annapoorna.
