The prefix ‘freewheeling’ before an interview to describe an uninhibited chat is perhaps one of the most overused, but a conversation with Anurag Kashyap does perfect justice to the word. excerpts from a no-holds-barred two-hour interview at the maverick filmmaker’s residence in suburban Mumbai.
On content
There is more content in India than anywhere else. But people don’t want to invest in content. They want to be safe. They want to tell stories the same way.
On OTT
Because of OTT platforms, everybody is in a rush to make money. And the OTT guys are also throwing money because they don’t have more than a year and a half before they get eliminated by Amazon, Google, Disney. They (OTT companies) are amassing content so that they have enough content to be bought out by one big company. OTT is an opportunity a lot of filmmakers are wasting.
On the overdose of sex and violence on OTT
Our biggest problem is that we are so repressed that we become excited over the smallest of things. People will make unnecessary stuff, characters will abuse unnecessarily, without context or culture or milieu. Violence and sex would be in extreme before they filter themselves out. People will get bored and they would come back to wanting to listen to good stories. Anybody creating good content will survive.
On cinema
Cinema will exist. It will become the space for extravaganza. And good cinema will also exist. Slowly cinema will start getting into people’s homes.
On the number of series ‘inspired’ by Gangs of Wasseypur
Everybody with one success finds a formula. And the day they find a formula, it’s only down from there. Then you don’t innovate. I want to run away from the formula. I want to do something new.
On why Bombay Velvet Bombed
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