Madhur Bhandarkar’s political potboiler ‘Indu Sarkar’ completes three years. The movie was based on the 1975 emergency and the movie saw a lot of protests and controversies before its release date. In an interview with ETimes, the director of the movie remembered his candid experience of shooting for the film and more…..
When the director was asked about how does he feels as ‘Indu Sarkar’ completes three years, he said, “I feel really great. I am very happy. I made a movie on the backdrop of the Emergency of 1975. I think this was a full-fledged movie that showed exactly what had happened during that time. It was a limited budget film. I got a great reception from the audience and till today people talk about the film. Kirti Kulhari’s role was appreciated a lot. I went through a lot of turmoil during the release. People wanted to ban the film and I had to run to the Supreme Court to get the judgement in the favour of the film”.
Madhur Bhandarkar took a big step when he directed ‘Indu Sarkar’, this movie was totally different from rest of the movies which he has directed till date, “In India, we think so much about how something will affect some political parties and if it will offend religious groups, etc. I deliberately wanted to make a movie in a budgeted way. I wanted to cast newcomers. I shot the film in 40 days. We acquired memorabilia of the era, met people who were there at the time. We also got a lot of inputs from political parties and oppositions. We tried to make it as authentic as possible with a spin of fiction. Although we take the utmost precaution to make everything right, actors get scared because they feel they will be targeted. They do so much of endorsements so they get scared that they might lose out on them. People do not get associated with the movie that has political connotations,” the director said.
The director further added how he felt about the protest against the movies, “People were calling ‘Madhur Bhandarkar murdabad’ and burning my effigies. I have a trail of making cinema which is topical and people have given me box-office successes and National Award for the same. So, all these things really disappointed me. That was the time nobody stood for me in the industry. When there were controversies and protests against films like, ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’, ‘Udta Punjab’ or ‘Padmaavat’, I always stood for my fellow people in the industry. It is then I realised, I have to fight my own battle here. I used to get sleepless nights. I didn’t know what to do. Anyway, I have always been open about the fact that I do not have friends in the film industry. It was only my family and outside friends who stood by me. But you tend to expect support when you are a part of the fraternity. And these are the same people who keep on talking about freedom of expression. However, they remained conveniently silent about the same. I believe that once the film has been approved by the Censor Board, it has to be released.”
Madhur Bhandarkar also added that due to political issues he couldn’t release his film overseas and he had fight alone for the release of his movie. But eventually, it turned out to be successful and still remains in everyone’s heart.
