Tigmanshu Dhulia on what plagues unsuccessful Hindi films: ‘Characters are not real, they come from nowhere’

Tigmanshu Dhulia is back with yet another realistic project, set in the heart of Uttar Pradesh. Titled Garmi, the show is a powerful youth political drama with real college students as the lead cast. Known for delivering films like Gangs of Wasseypur, Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster and Paan Singh Tomar, the filmmaker believes the characters in a film or a show must be realistic so that they can connect with the audience. This time, he is all set to tell the story of a boy who joins a presitgious college with big dreams but gets consumed by politics. “The premise is college politics but the story is of a boy who goes from a small hamlet to a bigger town with aspirations of becoming an IAS, just like many kids from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar do. The actors are new, they are 20-22-year-old students of MA first year. You will see freshness in their performance,” he says. Also read: Salman Khan schools filmmakers as he explains why Bollywood movies are not working: ‘Galat picture banaoge toh…’

Garmi has been majorly shot in Tigmanshu’s hometown Prayagraj with some portions being shot in Bhopal as well. It has been produced by Swaroop Sampat & Hemal Ashok Thakkar and stars Mukesh Tiwari, Vineet Kumar, Pankaj Saraswat, Jatin Goswami, Vyom Yadav, Puneet Singh, Anurag Thakur, Anushka Kaushik, Disha Thakur, and Dheerendra Gautam. It will begin streaming on SonyLIV from April 21 onwards.

Tigmanshu is a an alumni of National School of Drama and says he knows how to derive the right performance from a new and young star cast like this one. Sharing the challenges of working with such a cast, he says, “They do not know the small nuances of film acting like noticing the focus, dynamics of a frame like left and right, its not a stage where you can go around it. They take time in understanding such technicalities. Confidence is the main thing in acting. If you can generate that confidence that the actor can do it, half of the work is done.”

“Such a cast was chosen because it was physically close to the character. They look like how we have conceived the character, half of the job is done with casting. We induce the performance in them, if not, we do it ourselves and tell them to copy us. Its after all my work and I have to do what is needed to get the performance out of them,” he adds.

Tigmanshu claims he doesn’t watch many Hindi films but is aware of how South cinema has seen more success than witnessed in the Hindi film industry. He says, “South filmmakers work very hard, their stories resonate with those in the north. Maybe because their characters are very real, connected to the society. The relatability of the characters with the majority of the audience is very strong, be it Pushpa or RRR. The problem in our industry is that the characters are usually not real, they have no social status, they come from nowhere. From where do they come, there is not much detailing due to which people are not able to relate with them. I am not sure if this is the reason but this is what I think as per my understanding. There is no mention of their social background. Like there is a boy who is in love. But who is he, how educated is he, from where has he come? The audience is now exposed to world cinema, how will you make all that.”

He still believes it was not such a shocker. “Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 did perform and so did some other movies. Earlier around 250-300 films used to be made in a year and only 10-12 movies used to be a hit. The success ratio was always very low. People used to make movies because they were passionate about it,” he asserts.

The year 2022 also saw several Hindi remakes of South films. The filmmaker isn’t against remakes and feels it should only be made when the original is a big hit. On the topic of why many Hindi remakes of South or Hollywood films didn’t perform last year, he says, “When you adapt it in another language, like Hindi, the social translation gets distorted. Then sometimes there is wrong casting. The story shouldn’t be at fault if it has already worked in another language. We also try to put a lot of glamour in Hindi films.”