Sheer hustle and a 10-sec window with Imtiaz Ali: ‘Nukkad Naatak’ director on his debut film

Mumbai, Feb 25 (PTI) "Give our film and the newcomers debuting with it a chance" is the appeal with which first-time director Tanmaya Shekhar is promoting "Nukkad Naatak", an independent film that he made with the financial and moral support of family, friends and complete strangers.

A heartfelt exploration of the "Two Indias", the film is born out of Shekhar’s experience of witnessing the stark contrast between elite campus life and neighbouring slum poverty. It features actors Molshri and Shivang Rajpal.

"Our appeal is that we have worked very hard to make this movie. We did everything on our own. Now, at this stage, the industry support that we will get will help us a lot. Give this film a chance. Give us a chance. Give everybody who worked on the film a chance,” Shekhar told PTI in an interview.

An alumnus of IIT Kanpur, Shekhar left a stable engineering career in the US to pursue filmmaking. After spending six years on Hollywood film sets like HBO TV shows, “The Plot Against America”, "Love Life”, and a film “Never Rarely Sometimes Always”, he returned to India in 2022 with the story of “Nukkad Naatak”.

“When I went home four years ago on Diwali, I saw my mom teaching in a slum. It was shocking for me because I grew up on an IIT campus, my dad was an IIT professor and I studied at IIT. This slum was four km away.

"It was a moment of two Indias within one India: on one hand, you’ve an elite engineering college, and right next to it, you’ve a slum, and their lives don't intersect, the people from the slums don't go there and vice-versa.” Named after the popular street theatre form, “Nukkad Naatak”, the title, according to the debutante director, who hopes to highlight the education of underprivileged children and the challenges faced by LGBTQ individuals in conservative societies.

“The idea of a ‘Nukkad Natak’ is that you are taking something topical and going straight to the people, you are performing on the streets so that you can increase social awareness, social consciousness.

"My fundamental belief is that every person has the power to make a change in the world. If we are helping one person, we are making the world a better place. This is my perspective, which comes out through Molshri’s character.” Shekhar said indie films like Neeraj Ghaywan’s “Masaan” and “Udaan”, directed by Vikramaditya Motwane, served as inspiration in terms of the visual aesthetics of filming, and 2019 movie, “And Then We Danced” also influenced their style.

Molshri, who has acted in various plays and appeared in a supporting role in Huma Qureshi's “Bayaan”, said even though they faced multiple challenges while filming the movie, she cherishes every moment of it.

“This journey that I am undertaking now, I never thought my life experience would be like this, I’m telling people about my film, and I’m standing with my poster. This is also a lot about character building. I have changed for the better." Shekhar said he approached every director and producer in Bollywood, sent email and letters, including to independent cinema champions like Kiran Rao, Anurag Kashyap, and Vikramaditya Motwane, but nothing worked out.

“Giving up” is not in our DNA, Shekhar said, adding, even though he was clueless about the business of filmmaking, the only option he had was to make it on his own.

“We tried reaching out to people for six to seven months and then we realised that we would have to release our own film, and that was a hard moment. It seemed like a crazy moment,” he said, adding that he turned to his seniors in ITT, who gave him either Rs. One or two lakh and took a loan of Rs. One crore to make and release “Nukkad Naatak”.

One of the biggest moral boosts came from a chance encounter with director Imtiaz Ali. After being turned away by his security guard multiple times, Shekhar and Molshri finally caught Ali as he was entering his office.

“We had a 10-second window; we gave him the letter and told him a little about the film,” Molshri said.

To their surprise, Ali watched the film and liked it and even filmed a promotional reel, ‘How to Enter Bollywood’, with the duo and personally called OTT platforms on their behalf.

However, the industry's obsession with “known actors” turned out to be a hurdle.

“We got a call from the OTT platform and they asked us about the cast, we told them about it, and they hung up. Right now, is the worst time in the industry, everything has become tight. He (Ali) called for a few theatre chains, he has been very helpful,” Shekhar said, adding, he is elated that advance-booking for “Nukkad Naatak” has opened in a few theatres in India.

While filming for the film in Dhanbad the 15-member crew stayed at his parent’s house. His grandmother and mother were managing catering.

“It was the first time that they were doing this. If lunch was ready at 12 but shooting delayed it to 3 PM, my mom would be like, ‘Ab phir se garam karo khana’, or sometimes we would be like, we need lunch at 10 AM,” the director said, adding that his mother would sometimes scold the crew for messing up the house.

“A crew member who was 40-plus came to me saying, ‘I didn’t come here to be scolded by someone’s mother,” he said, adding, “It was such a gharelu (homely) atmosphere.” The film is set to release in theatres on February 27, and the “biggest test” for Shekhar is to bring people to cinema halls.

“Cinepolis saw the trailer. Our views are not as big as big films but our likes are more, even on bookmyshow, 20,000 people have marked, ‘I’m interested’ (in the movie), which is a very high number. It is all organic. Now, whether people will come to the theatre or not no one knows, we will have to wait till 27th. We’ve done our best,” Shekhar said. PTI KKP BK BK