Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha, known for his socially-relevant films like Thappad, Mulk and Article 15, is all set to produce an anthology film on the pandemic. Anubhav will bankroll the film under his Benaras Mediaworks banner.
He will collaborate with filmmakers Hansal Mehta, Sudhir Mishra, Ketan Mehta and Subhash Kapoor for the project. In a statement, Anubhav said that the team of filmmakers will interpret the period, especially February-March, and tell a story from it.
He said in a statement, “It will be an interesting bunch of names, to tell stories of an interesting time in our lives. We will all interpret this period – starting February/March 2020 – and we will all tell a story from it. This is such an interesting time, you know – even though I realise interesting may not be the best word. 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. And that is when I realised that maybe we should document this. And what better way to do it than different filmmakers looking at different things? Sudhir’s father passed away during this period. We lost Irrfan – And we could not even go to pay him our last respects. Kept wondering if I should go or not… Tigmanshu (Dhulia) had an argument with the police over this – he said, ‘I will go to his funeral. He is my brother!’”
Describing each filmmaker’s work, Anubhav said that Hansal Mehta’s movie is ‘quite comic and quite tragic’. Speaking about his own film, Anubhav said that he wants to ‘tell an atmospheric story, which is about fear’.
“Hansal’s story is quite comic and quite tragic. Sudhir bhai’s is 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,” he said.