Mumbai, Feb 12 (PTI) Director Reema Kagti says “Superboys of Malegaon” is her attempt to capture the essence of Nasir Shaikh, a self-taught filmmaker known for making local spoofs of films like “Sholay” and “Superman” in a small town in Maharashtra.
The story of Shaikh and his ragtag group of local film enthusiasts has been captured beautifully in Faiza Ahmad Khan’s popular 2008 documentary “Supermen of Malegaon”. Kagti, known for critically-acclaimed films such as “Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd” and “Talaash” and OTT series “Dahaad”, said she and others involved with the movie are a fan of the documentary and they have given it a shout out in their film. But her aim was not to mimic anything and rather capture those behind the true story.
“With all the actors, we didn’t try to mimic anybody. It was about trying to get a sense of the person. But having said that we tried to work on a lot of things like hair, makeup, wardrobe, and production design and all of that was done to hit the era we were in.
“The documentary is about the making of ‘Superman of Malegaon’, and our film, over a period of ten years, covers the making of the director Nasir. So, it goes a little more in-depth, into the start of his journey. We knew the documentary was out there and it’s very good, and how do we up the game a little more? Luckily, we had all the tools of fiction to do that,” Kagti told reporters at the trailer launch of “Superboys of Malegaon”.
The film, which features Adarsh Gourav as Shaikh and also stars Shashank Arora, Vineet Kumar Singh and Anuj Singh Duhan, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year. Filmmaker Zoya Akhtar, who serves as a producer on the movie, said it is a “universal” story that speaks of the human experience.
“It’s about people who felt (they were) outside of a system and wanted to do something, so they created their own system. And today, the mainstream is making a film on them,” she said.
An Excel Entertainment and Tiger Baby production, “Superboys of Malegaon” is written by lyricist-writer Varun Grover.
Grover credited Shaikh for helping him add depth to the story. He also visited Malegaon and met the actors and people connected to the local film industry over there.
“I benefited a lot from Nasir’s habit of documenting his life. He is one of the best archivists. He has all the moments, right from his childhood. For instance, he has a clipping of the news article about his play at the age of 15 or 16, and he has multiple copies of it,” the writer said.
In the trailer, Vineet Kumar Singh’s character says, ‘Writer baap hota hai’ and when asked if the dialogue came from his angst as a writer, Grover said the phrase holds true only for legends like Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar.
“’The writer is the baap’ (phrase) holds true only for two people, Salim (Khan) and Javed (Akhtar) There was a time, when this happened but that time has not come back,” he said.
Producer Ritesh Sidhwani added that everyone in the industry from actors to directors to producers relies heavily on writers.
“Unless a writer does his or her job, none of us have a job… We are realizing that a little late but ‘the writer is the baap’ because without them, nobody here has a job.” Actor Adarsh Gourav said he is “nervous” about the theatrical release.
“I’m very nervous not because I’ve some expectation of it to become some massive box office success, but when so many people collectively watch a film together sitting in a theatre, it’s a very different feeling than when you’re watching a film on an OTT platform at home.
“That is what makes me nervous. Personally, it’s been eight years since I’ve had a film released in a theatre. The last film that had a theatrical release in which I was playing the central character was ‘Rukh’, which was 2017,” the actor said.
Nikhil Madhok, Head of Originals, Prime Video India, said they never discussed having a direct-to-OTT release.
“We always knew this is a movie that should go to theatres. There are certain movies which are best watched as a community experience, and this is one of them. A movie about cinema has to be watched in a cinema hall,” Madhok said.
“Superboys of Malegaon”, slated to release in theatres on February 28, is a Prime Video original movie, which has Sidhwani, Zoya, Kagti and Farhan on board as executive producers. PTI KKP BK BK
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.