Director Pranay Meshram is gearing up for his big-screen debut with Akelli headlined by Nushratt Bharuccha. The film is a survival drama set in Iraq and is based on true events. The Free Press Journal speaks to him about hardships he faced while making the film, why he wanted Nushratt for the role and more.
Before his feature debut, he had assisted in films like Queen and Hasee Toh Phasee. When asked about making a debut with a gut-wrenching subject like Akelli, he shares, “The thought of it came to me when I met a lady who was abducted in Iraq when that fiasco happened in 2014. She narrated how she survived it. I was blown away by the fact that how can she even live after that incident. It intrigued me to tell a story about it. This was also never told before. I wanted people to see the other side of the story. I never had a particular story for my debut film.”
“To shoot my film, we went to Turkey, Abu Dhabi and other countries but didn’t get permissions and ended up shooting in Uzbekistan. It was just 10 days before the shoot that my producer changed the location. They welcomed us with open arms and gave all the support to us,” he adds.
Nushratt, who has been synonymous with rom-coms so far, has changed her on-screen image with her last release Chhorii. When asked how the idea to cast her in the film came to him, Pranay says, “I pitched Akelli to her way before Chhorii released. This is the fifth year that I have been living with the film. She wasn’t convinced for three years but later agreed to do it. When I met that lady, I felt that no one could ever imagine that she could fight back that severely. I had that image in mind since then and believed that Nushratt would go well with the role. But, I was sceptical whether she would say yes or no.”
“I told my casting director, Vicky Sidana, to read the script once. He too suggested Nushratt’s name and I was happy since I wanted her for the role. When other names were attached to the film, she was finally convinced,” he reveals.
Akelli, which was supposed to release on August 18, will now come out in theatres one week later on August 25 and will clash with Ayushmann Khurrana’s Dream Girl 2. When asked if he is happy to experience a theatrical release, especially when OTT has become huge, he explains, “A good film is a good film irrespective of the medium it releases on. I didn’t make Akelli with a pre-conceived notion that it is for OTT or a big screen. I just wanted to make a good and big film.”
