Fauda creators Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff, who’re currently on a two-day visit to India, attended the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) on Sunday. The two had a chat with Rajkummar Rao on the topic Storytelling in the Era of Global Entertainment and spoke about their desire to collaborate with Indian creators.

Fauda creators shared that when they started the project, they thought that nobody would watch the show. Lior said, “After the release of the first season, it became a hit and we thought that now we have to bring in more action in the show. People love the show because of how it is. You (as a viewer) feel like you are part of what’s happening, you are a fly on the wall. And we didn’t want to change that. We are not trying to be something that we are not. We are not trying to make it a Hollywood show and we are not trying to make it a Bollywood show. We are trying to make it the same thing that we already did. And this is the secret of the show.”

Avi added, “The most important thing was to match the expectations. The expectations after the first season became very high, then the second and then the third. After the third season, people thought we are not gonna go further. We were very surprised that we could match the challenges of the show. One of the ideas here is to keep the authenticity alive. It is not true, it is not a documentary, it is fiction, but you have to make people feel that it is authentic. Fauda was a very local Israeli show that became an international show. ”

The makers of Fauda have also collaborated with Indian creators, and a collaborative project is in the pipeline. Appealing to Indian creators, Lior Raz said, “I want to say this to those attending the screening – if there are any creators or producers here, then we are very much open to collaborating with you. We really want to collaborate with the Indian industry.”

Sharing how working in a web series helps an artiste, Rajkummar said, “It really helps when your work can travel globally. I remember after Ludo, even though theatres were not functioning, I got messages from people from the US, UK, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, which meant that people were watching Indian content globally. That’s what we want. A story like Fauda resonates with us. Art has no borders; if you make a good story, it will have a global appeal. You need to be grounded and you need to be rooted with your content. You can’t really make something which is surreal or unreal. You need to be authentic. That’s why Monica O My Darling or Badhaai Do work well. They are pushing makers.”

Commenting on what avenues streaming platforms have opened for him, Rajkummar said, “I wanted to do a series. Doing a series really enhances you as an artiste because you get to play the character for a longer duration. That’s what I felt while doing Guns & Gulaabs. I love watching films on streaming platforms. Watching other people’s work really inspires you as an artiste. I saw Kantara recently, and I was really inspired because it was such a rooted story. You can’t make a film thinking that I want to reach out to a global audience. You have to be true to the content and your heart should be in the right place.”

Monika Shergill, Vice President, Content, Netflix India, added, “What exactly is global storytelling? Stories are stories. They have to have authenticity and emotions. If you are working in your own bubble and you pick a story and say that it is going to work for an international audience – well, there is no ‘international audience’. There is nothing called an international audience.”

Fauda was earlier named Undercover, but later the name of the show was changed. Talking about the title, Avi said, “Fauda means ‘chaos’ in Arabic. Why did two Israeli-Jewish creators pick an Arabic name? The reason was that it had a double-edged meaning. It also has an Israeli meaning. And for us soldiers, who worked in undercover units, that was the code used when things turned messy. This is the word that you report in walkie talkie – ‘Fauda!, Fauda!, Fauda!’ and that is a sign for the rescue team to come.”

Raz added, “It is a very common word in Israel. Now everyone in Israel talks like – Oh! there is fauda in football games, there is fauda in politics. Nobody knew what fauda meant when we started the show, but now it is what everyone talks about.”