Vikramaditya Motwane refuses to be boxed in. Each of his work has been an endeavour in not serving stale, formulaic leftovers to his hungry audience. He cooks his stew until well done and serves them hot. The taste lingers and leaves you asking for more. There’s one adjective which defines the regally-named man: industrious. His is a quiet revolution. A smart one at that. He’d rather be seen as an enabler than a disruptor in the industry. The latter is a crown which sits pretty on Anurag Kashyap’s head, Motwane concurs with a smile.
Motwane’s saintly calm demeanour doesn’t betray the constant urge within to keep churning the unhackneyed, to keep pushing the envelope by hopping genres and form. His newest protégé so to speak, Zahan Kapoor, the youngest Kapoor scion, for whom Black Warrant has been an early career breakthrough, talks about watching showrunner Motwane on the set as a learning experience. “He (Motwane) was strict,” says Kapoor, “but also very generous and accommodating. He neither likes faffing nor does he do too much time-pass. He’s shaant (calm), diligent, meticulous, thorough, dedicated and wants us to cut the clutter and get to work.”
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The two, along with Rahul Bhat and producer and Applause Entertainment CEO Sameer Nair, were at the 2nd Cinévesture International Film Festival, Chandigarh, to talk about their hit period prison-drama series. Motwane also presided over another: “The advantage of multiple producers from an investor’s perspective”. In Mumbai, Motwane was the jury for Red Lorry Film Festival’s inaugural competition section and his debut Udaan (2010) was screened. Udaan, which competed at Cannes Un Certain Regard, was one of the first films for a certain generation, that spoke about the angst of adolescence.
At the Chandigarh festival, Motwane was also presenting a project. He is producing first-time director and established actor Radhika Apte’s Hindi-Marathi directorial debut feature Koyta (Sickle). The story follows a young migrant sugarcane cutter who undergoes a forced medical procedure that gives her superpowers. She then uses these powers to help free her family from debt. The OTT poster girl was last seen in Karan Kandhari’s Cannes-premiered indie comedy drama Sister Midnight will next feature in period film Akka, alongside Keerty Suresh. Motwane, who was the showrunner of Netflix India’s first original series Sacred Games, has been fostering newer talents since the very beginning
Motwane’s works, each a starkly different world from the other, are entwined in spirit. Glimpses of new work hearkens back to an older one. A running theme in his craft has been the sense of circumstantial entrapment and the fight against the oppression and allure of power. Sunil Gupta’s (essayed by Zahan Kapoor in Black Warrant) vulnerable innocence to coming into his own (such scenes as Sunil’s morning run in episode 3) reminds of Udaan’s Rohan (Rajat Barmecha); the incarceration, claustrophobia and helplessness of the screenlife thriller CTRL (2024) is akin to Trapped (2016).
Excerpts from an interview:
It’s been 15 years since Udaan, that film and Lootera (2013) were recently screened on the big screen. What do you make of the current trend of re-releasing old Hindi films?
It’s good, but they got to do it properly. It’s a little haphazard. It needs some thought. If you’re going to do something, a legacy for the sake of nostalgia, at least, give the people who have the nostalgia a chance to go watch the films correctly. We’re trying to tick a box it seems, but we’re not really doing it very well.
Anurag Kashyap has said he’s possessive of you. The two of your partnership has given us some of the best Hindi films in the last two decades. How do you process his decision to quit Bollywood?
I’m possessive of him, too. I’m very protective of him. I believe him. It (quitting Bollywood) is more just a change in life, a change of place, in setting. I think it does everybody some good.
Netflix has shelved Anurag’s Maximum City and Dibakar Banerjee’s Tees, both commissioned by the streamer itself. Your Indi(r)a’s Emergency (2023) documentary is also stuck. Those two have spoken about sinking into depression in the past when their works have been blocked. How do you keep yourself motivated?
You do the best you can. You can’t put your life into a single film. You have to keep reinventing yourself. You have to keep moving on. You have to keep doing stuff. That’s what I’ve constantly been doing. I don’t get very attached to my films, I love them to death and they’re my children, but if it’s not releasing, you fight the fight till you can. And after that you have to just let go.
Has your documentary Indi(r)a’s Emergency been shelved?
No, no. It’s not been shelved. It’s shot and is ready, it’s just stuck. We’ll figure out a release soon, hopefully.
Which, according to you, is your best work?
It’s hard to tell. I don’t have that kind of objectivity to judge my work. I recently watched Udaan when Versova Homage Screenings showed it a couple of months ago. I enjoyed it. I saw Lootera when it came in theatres a few weeks ago. I enjoyed it. I think the only way to judge something is from, I guess, your memory of making it. So, in that sense, Udaan (2010), of course, is special because it’s your first film. Lootera (2013) is special because it was such a tough shoot. Bhavesh [Joshi Superhero, 2018] for me is very, very special because it’s something that I’m very proud of.
Was the failure of Bhavesh Joshi Superhero the lowest point in your life?
It’s interesting because Bhavesh [Joshi Superhero] came out on June 1, 2018, and then Sacred Games released on July 6, 2018, a month later literally. The reception was diametrically different for both of them. The moment it came out, I was so caught up in Sacred Games that I just went with the flow from one to the other. So, I don’t think I had time to really consider Bhavesh’s failure, if at all. After that, there’s been so much love for the film that you always take it in positive light.
But what went wrong?
I think the promotions went a little wrong. The marketing was a little off. One should have tried something different with it. I think there’s a template that we end up doing with marketing. We shouldn’t have had that template in the market. So, maybe now, if we did it again…
Will you make another superhero film?
I probably will. I love superhero films.
Who’s your favourite superhero?
Batman, obviously. And, also, Superman.
That brings me to Phantom. The production company you co-ran with Kashyap. Before that UTV Spotboy was producing middle-of-the-road cinema. Why did Phantom Films disband?
Phantom disbanded for obvious reasons. Vikas (Bahl), Anurag, Madhu (Mantena) and I had got together and made Phantom. It lasted for seven years, I think. We did a lot of great stuff, actually. From my slate there was Lootera, Trapped, Bhavesh [Joshi Superhero], Anurag had Ugly, Raman Raghav, Bombay Velvet, and we had Masaan, Udta Punjab, NH10, Queen, some fantastic films. Now, why was Phantom formed? It was formed, in a sense, to be able to collectively empower ourselves and other filmmakers. To make the studios see the fact that since these four guys have come together, there must be something right about this, and, therefore we can trust them to shepherd movies. And that’s what we did primarily, to produce films that we really wanted to produce. We wanted to get films like Masaan, Udta Punjab, NH10 made. And Phantom was the means of doing it. It disbanded because of personal reasons, because we’d all reached a point where we realised that we all have different tastes and we want to explore those different tastes.
Will your Andolan Films carry forth the movement Phantom started?
Andolan’s vision right now is to service me. I want to make up for lost time and do a lot of work that I can create and direct. The vision’s always the same when you are somebody who wants to make stuff, wants to be an enabler and a disruptor, if you want to call it that, but someone who wants to see good films made, so, then you do whatever you can. The same was at Phantom. And the same is at Andolan. That hasn’t changed. I’m still the same person, maybe just wiser and smarter, hopefully.
As a producer today, how do you package an independent film?
It’s tough. I’m not going to lie. It’s tough to market and package indie films today. I think the need to go to movie theatres is not there anymore. Therefore, a lot of that has changed. But, I believe that, if we make more genre films, if we make more films that are exciting for an audience to watch, then the audience will come in and watch them. The key thing is creating excitement.
You are a showrunner on Black Warrant, which has four directors. Does the showrunner-director relationship replace the conventional director-assistant director relationship?
No, no. Showrunner is like a creative producer kind of person who’s written the stuff, who’s the creator of the show, who’s the constant creative voice on the show. The showrunner becomes someone who may or may not be a director, may or may not be the writer, but is somebody who’s overseeing the entire creative process from beginning to the end on something. The showrunner model is a quicker and more efficient model with fresher minds. You’re not directing every single minute of the 51 days of shoot, which is that much more of tech recce and shot breakdown. The important thing is to see my characters’ arcs are being served the way they are supposed to be.
The world we came from, we had to make movies for the cinemas. A lot of us directors whether it’s me or Anurag or Dibakar, Zoya (Akhtar) or Neeraj (Ghaywan) or Amit Masurkar, we all came from a very indie space and audience would watch our films in theatres. That is not the case today. So, what happens to a lot of new directors today? Where do they go? There’s no space to show their skill-sets in a theatrical world. This (showrunner) model, then, can be one answer to that.
What was it like being one of the 19 producers on Saumyananda Sahi and Tanushree Das’ directorial debut feature ShadowBox (Baksho Bondi), which stars Tillotama Shome and premiered at the Berlinale. That’s happened for the first time. Are multiple producers on a project a sustainable model? Sahi, who’s also the cinematographer on Black Warrant, Trial by Fire, All That Breathes, Eeb Allay Ooo!, Nasir, comes with a lot of goodwill.
I think it’s a sustainable model. Hundred per cent Somo (Sahi) and Tanushree come with a lot of goodwill. I think a lot of us came on board because we liked the script, we liked them, we liked the film. With a certain amount of people, like when you have people who need something in the moment…I see the film because it’s Somo’s film, so, I’d ask: How can I help? What do you need? I came in after the film was shot. Shaunak (Sen), Naren (Chandavarkar), Aman (Mann) and Jim (Sarbh) were involved at the creative process. We all loved the film. The whole idea is, again, enablers. We’re not here to say, hey, you have to do it like this. But, rather: What can I do for you? What kind of feedback do you want? Who do I need to call? How we can sort of enable things. That’s essentially our job on this one.
So how do you go about investing/raising funds for indies?
One way is the ShadowBox way is that you have 19 producers come in with smaller chunks of money and the film gets made or you then leverage whatever heft you’ve got to be able to raise the money for something bigger.
Both Netflix series you’ve been a showrunner on, Sacred Games and Black Warrant, have been a book-to-screen adaptation. Is that a safe model to play with for the OTT space?
It’s always a safer model in the sense that because the material is already written, you have a blueprint to go with. So, it was hundred percent easier to create something. Both Sacred Games and Black Warrant have different approaches to how one takes a book and adapts it for the screen. You read the material with that lens (of adapting it) already. In the case of Black Warrant, the book (Black Warrant: Confessions of a Tihar Jailer, 2019, Roli Books; by Sunil Gupta and Sunetra Choudhury) is already so dramatic, that Sunil Gupta gets a job on the very first day, he’s meeting this gentleman who gives him his job happens to be Charles Sobhraj, within the first year of his taking charge he’s entrusted with the hanging of Ranga and Billa. He sees so much in his 35 years. My first instinct was the adapt the whole book into a mini-series, but my co-creator Satyanshu (Singh) said, let’s slow down and adapt just the first four chapters in the first season and invest in Sunil Gupta’s life.
What do you have to say about the gatekeepers and the streamers.
I think enough has been said in the past few days. (Laughs.)
Sure, but do you find their mathematical, logbook style of working, with formulaic scripts, engagement points, inciting incidents, a challenge or is it exciting?
It’s both. My answer to that would be the fact that I think too much control in the hands of too little people is always a bad thing. And I feel that they need to be a little bit more open, little bit more trust needs to be there in the industry. I think the model in which we made Black Warrant, for example, the Applause model needs to be amplified and multiplied into 15 times. We should have 15 more Applauses over there who actually take the weight of creating and making something off the streamers. You need to be able to have more players are willing to risks and mitigate that risk.
For a lot of producer, the star system is way of mitigating risks. What is it for you?
Great stories. Great, exciting stories. For me, the best risk mitigation is a good story.
How do you pick your stories?
Whatever excites you in the moment. Either I find the stories or the stories or ideas find me, or I wake up and read something that triggers something in you. It could be a book you’ve read 20 years ago or a recent article.
What is political cinema to you?
What is political? Everything is political. Your choices in marriage are political. Your choices and things you do in life, what you say, how you feel, how you react to different classes of society. Everything is political. And, therefore, that also comes into your cinema bit by bit, either in a more casual way or a more formal way. I think, generally, I would say that we are a very sensitive country. It’s not specifically about politics or one kind of politics. It’s an overall ‘throw a stone, you’re gonna hurt somebody’s feelings’ thing, that more than a specific type of politics. There’s an overall approach that we need to end up taking which is: you don’t like a film, don’t watch it. Don’t want to read something, don’t read it. Don’t want to see something, don’t see it. But don’t impose. We are sensitive and because we are prone to sensitivity, there’s a tendency for us to react. We need to calm down a bit.
What next?
We’re writing Season Two (of Black Warrant). I’m also writing a film, a film series, and books.
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