Q&A WITH DIBAKAR BANERJEE

The National Award-winning filmmaker is all about playing mind games with his audience. He talks about bringing ground realities alive on screen, the future of cinema with the advent of OTT, and why he thinks he’s a low key troublemaker

- Ananya Ghosh

Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Even if you do, never judge a Dibakar Banerjee movie by its trailer. The film-maker, who picked up a National Award with his very first outing, Khosla ka Ghosla! and then another one with his sophomore movie Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, and went on to make films like Love, Sex Aur Dhokha (2010), Shanghai (2012), Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! (2015), loves to play mind games with his audience by bending genres, and turning Bollywood tropes on their head. His recent movie, Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar, is no exception. But the film-maker, who calls himself a low-key troublemaker thanks to his penchant for rattling the society with his non-conformist ideas, insists he is essentially just looking to make a hit movie that makes him and the producers rich.

In Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar, you have a hero, a heroine, both of them on the run, beautiful locales, all the trappings of a quintessential Bollywood love story. But it is not really one, is it?