Originality To Pay Control: Filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar On What Bollywood Needs To Introspect

The critically acclaimed and National Award-winning filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar has brought back the pain, trauma, and survival of manhood with his new film 'India Lockdown' currently streaming on Zee5. With four stories running separately but connected with one aspect- lockdown- Bhandarkar once again chose to bring a real-life story for cinema lovers to watch. In this conversation, Madhur Bhandarkar talks spoke about why he opted for an OTT release for the film and what the Bollywood industry needs to introspect about.

Excerpts from the conversation:

Q. Today, when the country has moved on from lockdown and the memories are slowly vanishing, do you think people's interest in the film is still on the higher side?

We always have moved on in our lives and we have good memories and bad memories in our personal life or history also. However, we as human beings, always revisit the past and we want to see what happened in those times. Lockdown happened two years back, it didn’t happen 30 years back and still today people are taking precautions, and we are still following certain protocols. The film takes us to the start of the first lockdown and what happened during that lockdown and that’s the scene we want to say. The pain, the turbulence, up and down, and the story of survival and I personally feel everybody will connect with it.

Q. Lockdown was taken positively by many but there were opponents of the move. How did you ensure to keep the neutral aspect in sync during the making of the India lockdown?

My story is a human story. It is basically how the human spirit fought and we traced that journey.  When I started writing this film, I had 12  people of different strata of society so at some point I thought I should make a film on all of them, maybe a web series or not, and then I thought it would take time to approach OTT platform and the writing is huge. It's like three movies if you are writing for a season so 12 stories became 10, then 8 then 6, and then it came to four. We thought we should do justice to all the characters so we came to four characters.  We have shown the whole dynamics of how they took that lockdown and how they survived.

Q. Why did you opt for the film to be released on ott and not in theatres?

When we made the film last year and I was busy with the 'Babli Bouncer'  shoot, and it was at that time when theatres were not working so well and there were strong rumors that theatres will be shut so we thought that time only that there has been a paradigm shift of how people are coming on OTT and watching the film.  I felt that it was a big change. My movies are of very limited budget so I know how to make them work and that's my USP. For the last 20 years- from 'Chandni Baar' to 'India lockdown'- it has been a great journey for me and all films are commercial successes and critically acclaimed.

I am in my own zone and  I enjoy my moviemaking. I never follow the particular dictation of the market. I have never done that. I am always an independent filmmaker without any lobby. I have survived on my own for the last 21 years so I feel that OTT is huge. Personally, I feel that when you make such a movie, the reach should be more.

Q. You have seen the industry grow and mature in your over two decades of journey. What are the most significant changes that you feel proud of and what are the aspects that you want this industry to unlearn again?

I am not here to preach but I can say from my personal experience that we should focus more on writing. When I saw 'Kantara', I couldn't believe how brilliantly it was made, so I think writing is very necessary and try to get more original stuff because that’s what is important. We are not only competing with our own Indian films, but we are also competing with world cinema.  I feel that there is strong content that we really need to go for because for the people who are watching OTT, there is so much content that they always think that what is different in the one you are offering. Also, If everybody controls the price- the producer, the actor, the director then it will definitely help.

Q. What next?

This year has been really kind to me so I will think about what subject I should be doing next. I am in no rush.