As Ship of Theseus clocks 12 years, director Anand Gandhi talks about the film, how difficult it was to release the film and how he was the one who actually directed Tumbbad.
I believe Ship of Theseus endures because the fundamental human questions it explores have remained unchanged for millennia and will likely persist for millennia more: Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I headed? What remains of me after death? How do I find or create meaning? These are questions we ask instinctively as children, yet spend lifetimes as philosophers, scientists, and scholars attempting to answer, often without definitive success. With Ship of Theseus, I aimed to engage rigorously with these timeless questions, drawing from the latest insights in cognitive neurobiology, evolutionary biology, ethology, ontology, and epistemology, while synthesizing these disciplines through my own lived experiences. This combination of disciplined inquiry and personal reflection perhaps explains why the film continues to resonate deeply.
Was it very difficult releasing a film so complex and non-massy?
Initially, releasing the film was challenging. Convincing distributors proved difficult until Kiran Rao came on board, subsequently bringing Disney on board. Aamir Khan also lent his support to the film. Disney needed reassurance that India was ready—not merely for an international arthouse film, but specifically for a film rooted in philosophical and scientific exploration. I was convinced that Indian audiences, historically steeped in metaphysics, rational inquiry, and philosophical traditions, were more than ready. Their maturity surpassed distributor expectations. A community-driven social media campaign demonstrated this readiness, with audiences actively demanding the film’s release in their cities. This resulted in screenings across 89 cities and towns throughout India, a truly grassroots triumph.
What was the impetus behind this allegory on life, death, and everything in between?
It emerged from a confluence of my personal philosophical journey and pivotal life experiences. Profoundly influenced by my mentor Abhay Mehta and all those who had sought before me, my inquiries became urgently real during my twenties while nursing my grandparents in the hospital. I felt like the philosopher in that old parable: one who spends the boat ride questioning the boatman about literature and scriptures, only to discover he cannot swim when the boat springs a leak. My philosophical knowledge had not equipped me for life’s immediate demands. This realization compelled me to test whether profound questions could yield not just meaningful answers, but purposeful, utilitarian ones that serve people in their actual lives.
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Do you think Ship Of Theseus would have done better if released now with so many democratic outlets?
I’m not convinced the film would necessarily perform better or worse now. Ship of Theseus was among the first Indian films Netflix acquired, so we didn’t miss that digital wave, we rode its crest. We later converted significant portions of the film’s rights to copyleft licensing, enabling community sharing with proper attribution.The real issue isn’t the number of platforms available, but their understanding of Indian audiences.
Please explain?
Many contemporary outlets systematically underestimate viewers here, defaulting to western remakes or simplified narratives reverse-engineered from old television ratings. This represents a profound misreading of what Indian audiences actually want and deserve. Indians have centuries-deep traditions of philosophical inquiry, metaphysical exploration, and narrative sophistication. Yet these platforms often treat them as if they’re incapable of engaging with complex ideas. The result is a self-fulfilling prophecy where diminished expectation leads to diminished commercial returns. These outlets aren’t producing a hundredth of the variety their global counterparts do, precisely because they’ve underestimated the market’s actual appetite for substantive cinema and shows.
Why have you not to directed any feature film after Ship Of Theseus, we did see you name as ‘Creative Director in Tumbbad?
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The big thing I want to clarify about Tumbbad is that I directed the film and this is something that’s well known within the industry. My credit on the film says creative director and that’s just basically a way to respect the fact that Rahi Anil Barve had started working on the film as a director first before I had to take over as a director.
Are you saying you have ghost-directed the entire Tumbbad?
Yes, I had to scrap the work that had been done and I had to reshoot the film from the beginning and hence I took a ‘creative director credit’ which is, as you know in films, a credit that does not pre-exist, it does not exist before or after Tumbbad. So in the case of Tumbbad, I said that we’ll make up a credit called creative director, a director’s job is all obviously the same as that of a creative director but because in this case we had to make a distinction between the role that was committed to Rahi, I took on the title of a creative director which was legally supposed to always come along with Rahi as per the contracts.
But that didn’t happen?
But that contract was not honoured on several occasions in the press and in other places by Tumbbad producer Soham Shah. So far I tried to not make that the main key point about the conversation because I try not to get into too much of press about the negative experiences of making a film. I always try to stick to talking about how I made the film, what I was thinking, what my intentions are and that’s the kind of thing that always excites me but since you pointedly asked, this needed clarification so I’m clarifying it. When I started the film, when I started Tumbbad, I started as a writer and producer with Rahi supposed to direct it but eventually I directed the film. I had to make the whole film.
