Meet The Ghost Directors

The famous four Karan Johar, Zoya Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap and Dibaker Banerjee – promise to scare us with their next anthology Ghost Stories, writes Rahul Gangwani

- Rahul Gangwani

The quartet mirror the diverse mood and method of Hindi cinema. While Karan Johar is synonymous with glamour, Anurag Kashyap is with the gritty and the gnawing. If Zoya Akhtar has a firm grip on human frailties, Dibakar Banerjee is a raconteur of the real. But despite their dissimilar sensibilities, their love for cinema keeps them in sync. After the success of their anthologies, Bombay Talkies (2013) and Lust Stories (2018), the four have collaborated once again for another omnibus – Netflix’s Original series’ Ghost Stories. While the first one celebrated 100 years of Indian cinema, the second one explored women sexuality, the third will delve into the paranormal. I meet them just a few hours before they attend the International Emmy Awards in New York. Their corpus, Lust Stories, is nominated in the Best Mini-Series category. I’d expected the conversation to be around this honour and of course their latest Ghost Stories. But no, they’re in serious discussion about the carte du jour. After having arrived at a consensus vis-à-vis the menu, they turn to me for an appetizing conversation…

HOW EXCITED ARE YOU GUYS ABOUT LUST STORIES BEING NOMINATED AT THE INTERNATIONAL EMMY AWARDS?

ZOYA AKHTAR: I’m excited that our work has been validated at this level. Whether we win or we lose, we’re going to party. The thing to celebrate is the journey. It’s going to get bigger and better from here.

KARAN JOHAR: I’m supremely excited. With Bombay Talkies we went to Cannes. Lust Stories has won a nomination at the International Emmys and we’re in New York for that. Our third anthology, Ghost Stories, is coming up. To get this kind of international acknowledgment for any filmmaker is amazing.