Mumbai: Director Anubhav Sinha will be collaborating with Hansal Mehta, Sudhir Mishra, Ketan Mehta and Subhash Kapoor for an anthology film on the novel COVID-19 pandemic.
He will be producing the film under his production banner, Benaras Mediaworks.
Talking about the film, Anubhav Singh told to a leading portal, "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."
He added, "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. Uss raat mere dimaag mein aaya ki humein usko document karna chahiye (I had the idea that night that we should document all of it). And what better way to do it than different filmmakers looking at different things? Sudhir bhai ke pitaji ki death hui COVID period mein. We lost Irrfan – aur hum Irrfan ke janaaze par bhi nahi jaa paye. Nikloon ki nahi nikloon… Tigmanshu ko police se jhagda karna pada – he said main toh jaaonga, bhai hai mera (Sudhirs father died during Covid period. We could not attend Irrfan’s funeral. Should I step out or not. Tigmanshu had to fight the police saying ‘I will go, he was my brother’)."
READ |I will only make movies: Anubhav Sinha explains Bollywood resignation tweet
Anubhav further said how he convinced other directors to make a film on this topic.
"Yeh saari cheezein disturbing thi. Mujhe laga inko record karna chahiye. Maine phir baat kari sab doston se and they all said haan yaar karte hain. And that's how the idea behind it began to formalise. This seemed like a good collaboration for all of us. There's one story by Subhash, one by Hansal, one by Sudhir bhai, one probably by Ketan. These are filmmakers that I believe the so-called Bollywood has largely ignored."
Shedding more light on each filmmaker’s story, Anubhav explained, "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. And Ketan is saying 'main dekh ke batata hoon'."
The yet-to-be-titled anthology is scheduled to release in 2021.
