Meena Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 10, 2017)

The late Vinod Khanna’s youngest son Sakshi, who was to make his acting debut in a Sanjay Leela Bhansali production with casting agent Mukesh Chhabra as the director is now making headway in another cinematic department. After founding Jugaad Motion Pictures with friend Dheer Momaya in 2015, under which they made a series of TV commercials, music videos and digital content, Sakshi is foraying into film production following a meeting with Ukranian writer-director Dar Gai.

The association culminated in Jugaad’s first short film, the crowd-funded Teen Aur Aadha, which was shot in three takes last year. It caught the attention of Anurag Kashyap, who came on-board as presenter to help promote the film that features Jim Sarbh, Zoya Hussein (who will be seen in Kashyap’s next) and veteran theatre actors MK Raina and Suhasini Mulay. It also marks the acting debut of 12-year-old Arya Dave. Dheer confirmed the news to Mirror, saying, “We want to disrupt the way the Indian film industry works and make films we believe in.”

While Teen Aur Aadha gears up to make the rounds of the international film festival circuit, Sakshi and Dheer’s second film, Namdev Bhau, is in final stages of post-production. Set between Mumbai and Ladakh, it was shot entirely in natural light and has in the lead Namdev Gurav, a 65-year-old Maharashtrian driver who was put through months of acting workshops and prep.

After wrapping up Namdev Bhau, the duo, who has got financial backing from overseas, will kick off their third and biggest venture yet — Nuns — an Indo-Italian co-production scheduled to kick off in Italy in early 2018. Plans are also afoot for films in Guajarati, Telugu and a mainstream Bollywood project too, scheduled to go on the floors next year.