Anubhav Sinha, Sudhir Mishra, Hansal Mehta, Ketan Mehta and Subhash Kapoor are planning an anthology film based on stories and experiences from the Coronavirus pandemic
Anshul Chaturvedi (BOMBAY TIMES; July 26, 2020)

For Indian cinema, the anthology — a collection of short films with a similar subject — as a collaborative project with multiple filmmakers has now become a relatively familiar concept. This is courtesy the OTT space, which has been host to several popular ones, stitching together tales on a variety of topics, ranging from stories of lust to stories of ghosts.

For the big screen, however, this remains unfamiliar territory. In 2013, we saw Bombay Talkies, an anthology that had four short films, directed by Dibakar Banerjee, Karan Johar, Zoya Akhtar and Anurag Kashyap, to celebrate the 100th year of Indian cinema. However, when the sequel for it, Lust Stories, with the same directors, came out in 2018, it released on OTT and not in theatres. All subsequent anthologies have also released on OTT platforms. Before this, there have been films like Darna Zaroori Hai (2006) and Dus Kahaniyaan (2007) with each story being helmed by a different director.

Does that make Bombay Talkies Bollywood’s last big screen collaborative anthology? Perhaps not, if something being planned by five directors presently works out — a project that may release sometime around April 2021.

Anubhav Sinha, Sudhir Mishra, Hansal Mehta, Ketan Mehta and Subhash Kapoor are working on making an anthology focused on the subject that we are living through presently — the experiences of life amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is such an interesting time, you know — even though I realise interesting may not be the best word,” explains Anubhav, who is informally spearheading the collective effort. “Sudhir bhai’s driver had contracted COVID and he was unable to get a bed — and we were making all sorts of phone calls just to get him a hospital bed. Uss raat mere dimaag mein aaya ki humein usko document karna chahiye. And what better way to do it than different filmmakers looking at different things? Sudhir bhai ke pitaji ki death hui COVID period mein. We lost Irrfan — aur hum Irrfan ke janaaze par bhi nahi jaa paye. Nikloon ki nahi nikloon… Tigmanshu ko police se jhagda karna pada – he said main toh jaaonga, bhai hai mera!”

He adds, “Yeh saari cheezein disturbing thi. Mujhe laga inko record karna chahiye. Maine phir baat kari sab doston se — and they all said haan yaar karte hain. And that’s how the idea behind it began to formalise. This seemed like a good collaboration for all of us. There’s one story by Subhash, one by Hansal, one by Sudhir bhai, one probably by Ketan. These are filmmakers that I believe that the socalled ‘Bollywood’ has largely ignored.”

Ketan Mehta? It’s been a while since we saw his work. How did he get persuaded?

Anubhav pauses to make an impassioned point. “The corporate world doesn’t know who Ketan Mehta is. Unhone Mirch Masala ka naam hi nahi suna, dekhna toh chhor do! I saw it a month back. Log mujhe bolte hain ki Anubhav makes feminist cinema, etc etc. I say look at Mirch Masala — that’s what a film is! Thappad is not a film — Mirch Masala is a film! If I had any power, I would be chasing Ketan Mehta to make films all the time. I heard this story once about (Akira) Kurosawa not making a film for many years and (Quentin) Tarantino met him and asked him about it — and he said, I don’t have funds. And Tarantino called up the studio and said, ‘Hey, Kurosawa doesn’t have money to make a film — produce one!’ And then Kurosawa made his next film. This is an authentic story I believe... Today Ketan is not making films. Govind Nihalani is not making films — arrey yaar Ardh Satya banai thi unhone! Sharam karo, doob maro, iss sheher mein Govind Nihalani ko film banane ko nahi mil raha hai!”

Angry point made, Anubhav returns to the original topic. “Sudhir Mishra and Ketan Mehta are the stalwarts here — jinka cinema dekh kar hum ne picture banana seekha hai. Then the three of us, aaj ke — myself, Hansal and Subhash Kapoor.”

Anubhav adds, “So, it will be an interesting bunch of names, to tell stories of an interesting time in our lives. Yeh meri neeyat thi when I thought of the directors. I would have wanted (Anurag) Kashyap to also be part of this, but he is starting a big project so he couldn’t join us.”

The pandemic stories, essentially, then? “Yes. We will all interpret this period — starting February/March 2020 — and we will all tell a story from it.” And the sub-stories? “Hansal’s story is quite comic and quite tragic. Sudhir bhai’s is political, quite political. Subhash’s is also political, but in a different way. I am still struggling with my story — I want to tell an atmospheric story, which is about fear. I live on the 20th floor and I can see a very large expanse of Mumbai from my window. It has suddenly started looking like a deserted, dead city. And Ketan is saying ‘main dekh ke batata hoon’ (laughs).”

Hansal Mehta adds that he was very excited about the idea and is ready to begin shoot. “We have been meeting virtually very often during this lockdown. In one of our virtual parties Anubhav came up with this idea of chronicling this extraordinary time in history through this anthology of short films. I jumped at the idea. I think I was the first among our entire group to submit a script! I’m ready to begin shooting next week. It will be exciting to have like-minded directors with diverse styles tell their stories.”

Sharing why telling these stories is important, Subhash says, “The world has not seen anything like this ever before, it’s crucial to chronicle this period and explore stories around, I look forward to this journey with like-minded friends.”

“Reflections during the COVID time” is how Sudhir Mishra puts it. “It is not just ki chalo anthology banate hain and this is a good topic,” he explains. “It has developed organically. We talk a lot. We are envious of each other in the right ways. We have some sort of loose federation of common interest. This developed like that — and we said, let’s do this together.”

“We will all hopefully be able to start shooting by November,” says Sudhir, “If someone has to shoot indoors, then that is easier. But if the story demands outdoor shots, crowds — which you assume a political story will — then we have to see by what time that becomes possible.”

Nikhil Dwivedi’s woman-centric film with an A-lister will roll in a few months
Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 17, 2019)

After Manmarziyaan last year, Anurag Kashyap has been off the radar. Now, Mirror has learnt that the filmmaker is writing a woman-centric vengeance drama which will be a homage to Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill series which featured Uma Thurman as the Bride who swears revenge on a team of assassins and their leader, Bill, after they try to kill her and her unborn child. Produced by actor-turned-filmmaker Nikhil Dwivedi, the film will roll towards the middle of the year.

“Anurag has not taken on an independent writing project in a decade. He only scripted films he produced or directed. He is really kicked about this collaboration,” informs a source close to the development, adding that the makers have already approached an A-list actress and will be finalising all the formalities in a few days.

Nikhil who had produced the girl-bonding film, Veere Di Wedding, last year, featuring Kareena Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor, Swara Bhasker and Shikha Talsania in lead roles, plans to produce one woman-centric film every year. He has known Anurag for years now and was even supposed to act in one of his films a while ago, but the project didn’t materialise. “They are happy to finally collaborate on a subject close to their hearts,” adds the source.

The last Hindi film Anurag co-scripted was Bhavesh Joshi Superhero with Harshvardhan Kapoor in the lead. Nikhil plans to shoot the film in Bhutan, Sikkim, Japan and Mumbai. 

Natasha Coutinho (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 16, 2018)

Fourteen years after Quentin Tarantino made the Uma Thurman-starrer Kill Bill, his most profi table film of the time which revolved around a deadly assassin known as ‘The Bride’, the franchise is up for a desi makeover. Mirror has learnt that Nikhil Dwivedi’s production house has bagged the remake rights for the two-part series.

A spokesperson for Nikhil, who recently produced Veere Di Wedding alongside Anil and Rhea Kapoor, and Ekta and Shobha Kapoor, confirmed the news.

Kill Bill: Volume 1, which released in 2003, introduces Uma as the deadliest woman in the world who swears revenge on a team of assassins and their leader, Bill (played by David Carradine), after they try to kill her and her unborn child. Her journey takes her to Japan, where she battles the Tokyo Yakuza (members of a transnational organised crime syndicates). Made on a budget of $30 million, it raked in over $180 million.

The sequel, originally set for a single release but eventually divided into two given its run time of four hours, opened in 2004, replicating the commercial and critical acclaim of its predecessor.

An interaction with the filmmaker, who is revered by cinephiles across the globe. Christopher Nolan talks about cinema, celluloid and his choices in filmmaking
Renuka Vyavahare (BOMBAY TIMES; April 2, 2018)

Chris Chris, Nolan Nolan… diehard fans chanted this slogan in unison, (an ode to his Dark Knight trilogy) at the special Mumbai screening of Dunkirk (in IMAX 70 mm) on Saturday. As the sounds echoed in the theatre, the much-acclaimed director remained calm and collected. He playfully pointed out that the screening got sold out also because ‘it is a good film’.

The British filmmaker Nolan loosely reminds you of a more casual version of Daniel Day-Lewis’ Reynolds Woodcock in Phantom Thread — a genius singularly focused on his job, avoiding any sort of distraction. You can sense his simmering impatience underneath a Zen-like exterior. Stalwarts like Kamal Haasan, Shah Rukh Khan, A R Rahman and Rajkumar Hirani all thronged to meet the filmmaker and that just speaks volumes about his popularity in India.

Nolan’s extreme focus in times of digital clutter is noteworthy and perhaps explains why he doesn’t use a cell phone even today. Films like Inception, Interstellar, The Dark Knight trilogy and the latest Dunkirk, are just a reflection of his passion for the craft and his ability to bring an uncanny psychological depth to the stories he tells. He awed the audience during his first press interaction in India, held in Mumbai for film preservation and restoration, a common cause supported by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, filmmaker and founder of the Film Heritage Foundation.

Nolan has been a strong advocate of celluloid along with filmmaking giants like Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, JJ Abrams, to name a few.

While sipping on his must have (Earl Grey) tea at regular intervals, he explains why the choice of shooting on film should be made available to filmmakers. Whether they then choose analogue or digital depends on how they want to tell their story but they cannot be denied the right to choose. Excerpts from an insightful conversation...

You don’t use a cell phone or even an email. Will we see that changing since we live in a digital age and social media is big, today?
This way I don’t have to worry about my Facebook data (smiles). I am not interested in that side of life actually. We may live in a digital age, but we live in an analogue world. One of the things we all love about celluloid film is that it’s a very good analogy for, the way I see it, having a relationship with real life. Digital doesn’t have that. So analogue remains a powerful storytelling tool. I don’t have a cell phone but I don’t think that is relevant to my choice of medium, they are two different questions. One of the problems with digital semantics, which Tacita (Dean) and I talked about a lot, is that the word digital is essentially meaningless at this point in our culture. What does that even mean? It’s used to describe everything, and everything uses digital technology. My films use massive amounts of digital technology. Tacita in her presentation yesterday, talked about how she uses digital technology to make the masks that go into her camera, that then allows her to do multiple exposures on celluloid films. We all use digital in this and in that, but it doesn’t really mean anything.

Not everyone who watches movies might have the ability to tell the difference between film and digital format. How would you explain this to a common man?
Well, this question is always asked in an invalid way because you ask people to quantify something that they are not technically knowledgeable enough to quantify. The point isn’t that you can or cannot tell the difference between film print and digital. The point is what do you enjoy watching? Those of us who work in the filmmaking profession see different formats every day, most of the people I talk to fully understand it. You just enjoy watching a film print more. It’s more emotionally involving, fun to watch, immersive and nicer to look at. So trying to apply rigorous technical logic to it is beside the point. That thought is often used by people promoting digital technology, they say that people can’t really tell the difference.

Quentin Tarantino said in an interview that, “If I can’t shoot on film, I will stop making movies.” He even described the digital projection at Cannes as the ‘death of cinema’. Do you share that sentiment?
It’s more important for me to present myself as a practical filmmaker, more than what I think, Quentin cares about. But the reality is, he told me the very same thing several years ago and when I heard it, I realised that it would be very difficult for me as well, to muster any enthusiasm for getting up early in the morning and going to work if there wasn’t a real film camera on the set.

You are considered to be a traditionalist who continues to support film as an art form, while your movies are quite futuristic. How do you deal with the two contrasting thought processes?
I am not alone in this endeavour. There are various allies and tremendous filmmakers who love to shoot on film. Film is a medium. It’s a way of telling a story. You can use it for whatever you want it for. For example, in Dunkirk we tried to tell a story in an ambitious and different way using interesting structural techniques, so that’s also relevant. Traditionalist in terms of working methodology? To me that is a technical question, it’s not an artistic question.

Steven Spielberg made a political statement through his movie The Post. Do you also feel the need to do the same in the Donald Trump era, since you are also a powerful filmmaker in Hollywood?
No, I am more instinctive in my choices. I just make a story that grabs me.

How familiar are you with Indian cinema?
I have watched some Indian films, not enough though. I have enjoyed whatever I have seen. I intend to watch and discover more. This was part of the reason why I wanted to come here. I wanted to meet people from the Indian film industry, which is one of the biggest film cultures in the world and I am excited for it. We were in India before, very briefly to shoot The Dark Knight Rises and it’s exciting to be back and to be able to spend more time here.

Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 7, 2015)

The two worlds depicted in Vikramjit Singh's directorial debut, Roy, have one thing in common - Jacqueline Fernandez. The two characters played by the actress also help demarcate the two stories with their varied styles. The romantic thriller, which also stars Arjun Rampal and Ranbir Kapoor, has Jackie playing a double role and pulling off two distinctly different looks.

Costume designer Niharika Khan whose repertoire includes films like Rock On!!, Band Baaja Baraat and the National Award-winning The Dirty Picture reveals that the film progresses through flashbacks. Jackie plays Ayesha, a bohemian filmmaker, and Tia, a glamorous globetrotter.

"Both Ayesha and Tia have an innate sense of who they are. Their style is an expression of their personality. Tia is rich and wears elegant, structured pieces. Her look is serene. Ayesha on the other hand is reckless, gregarious and bohemian."

The film is loosely based on the real-life affair between Hollywood filmmakers Quentin Tarantino and Sofia Coppola. But Niharika asserts that the looks have been tailored for a desi audience. "Sofia's style has not been recreated for either Ayesha or Tia but like her, Jackie too wears shorts and keds when on the sets. Arjun Rampal also plays a director, Kabir, and he too is casually dressed at shoots, like Tarantino."

Some fashionistas have also pointed out that Jacqueline's Ayesha is styled on Bollywood directors Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti. Niharika retorts, "It's not just them, all of us dress like this on the sets. Women in Bollywood no longer wear trousers and shirts to work. We prefer lounging around in loose pants and sneakers, with our headphones plugged in, since most of love both music and clothes. Jackie's look reflects that."

This was the first time Niharika worked with the former Miss Sri Lanka. Were there any beauty queen-like tantrums? "None," she says. "For one particular shot she had to wear a hat. I cringed when I saw how she looked in it but Jacqueline didn't complain. Finally, I asked her to hold the hat in her hands and not wear it."

Tense, violent, funny, suspenseful, bloody, shocking, tender, unsettling, hypnotic, thrilling... Quentin Tarantino's modern classic changed cinema overnight and 20 years on, remains fiercely original
Sriram Raghavan (THE TIMES OF INDIA; November 2, 2014)

Ankur Pathak (MUMBAI MIRROR; March 31, 2014)

They are two of the biggest names in Hollywood and now it seems that Quentin Tarantino and Sofia Coppola’s love story has transcended geographical boundaries, inspiring an Indian filmmaker’s debut project.

Mirror has learnt that the upcoming film Roy, which features Arjun Rampal and Jacqueline Fernandez as the lead pair, is inspired by the relationship between the Lost in Translation and Pulp Fiction directors.

“Vikram (Vikramjit Singh, the director) is a fan of both the filmmakers and he wanted to create a narrative around the affair between the two movie greats,” revealed a source close to the production.

Both, Arjun and Jacqueline have started preparing for their parts. Jacqueline will be visiting the Film and Television Institute in Pune to observe young filmmakers at work.

When contacted, Vikramjit Singh confirmed the news, saying, “The Tarantino-Copolla affair has definitely inspired our plot. And I’ve had several discussions with my cast about the same. Both Jacky and Arjun have been reading up extensively about the two directors to get the nuances of their personalities right,” he said.

Upala KBR (DNA; February 26, 2014)

Anushka Sharma’s debut production NH10, a revenge-action-thriller, is said to be inspired by Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill.

At 25, Anushka is the youngest actor-producer in the industry, and the first film she chose to make is a risky subject. Not many filmmakers would back a film with an actress as the protagonist, so it is indeed a bold choice. But perhaps the driving force behind her decision was that it offers her the chance to play a character which has never been seen before in a Hindi film.

It is a role, any actress would ‘kill’ to do. Says a source who has read the script, “It is inspired from Kill Bill. Though it is not the same story, NH10 is a revenge drama. Anushka and her husband are travelling when he is killed by a group of people. She then goes after the killers, hunts them down and gives them all brutal deaths. The film is set against the rustic backdrop of northern India — Delhi and Uttar Pradesh — to give it an Indian flavour.”

Anushka had a tough time finding a big name to play the character of her husband, because his character gets murdered in the first-half of the film. First, Shiv Pandit backed out and then Rajkummar Rao walked out. Finally, Neil Bhoopalam (worked in Shaitan in 2011 and last seen in Anil Kapoor’s tele drama 24) is playing the role of Anushka’s husband in the film.