After premiering at the Venice Film Festival, Stolen travelled to nearly 40 festivals before releasing on OTT. Its producer Gaurav Dhingra, director Karan Tejpal and lead actors Abhishek Banerjee and Shubham Vardhan talk about its making; balancing craft with social commentary; and the contemporary eco-system for indie cinema.
The trigger for making Stolen is the 2018 Karbi Anglong incident in which two men were lynched as ‘child kidnapping’ rumours circulated on social media. Why did you think of developing this as a feature film?
Karan Tejpal: It came as a shock to me that you can be so unjustly accused of something you haven’t done. I was surprised that nearly 5,000 people can collect within minutes and brutally lynch you. They were assumed to be child kidnappers on the basis of how they looked. One of them had long dreadlocks and they were driving a big car. When I dug deeper into the incident, I came across how technology was used. Such incidents are what’s called ‘WhatsApp lynchings’ since a message can be transmitted to thousands of people through WhatsApp. This case came to the limelight due these brutal videos which were doing the rounds. From 2015 to the time that the pandemic swept the world, there were about 300 such cases in different parts of India.
It started as the unpeeling of this phenomenon and wanting to understand why and how (such incidents are taking place). Being a writer and filmmaker, in a couple of years, the idea of giving shape to a story came up. It crystallised into becoming a film when I met Gaurav. Making a film and telling it a certain way is a cathartic experience. I experienced such fear when I heard about such incidents and the injustice that can take place and no one is held responsible for it. I heard about this incident in 2018 and I started writing in 2020. I shot the film in 2023.
How did Abhishek Banerjee come on board?
Abhishek: My mind was blown when Karan and Gaurav (Dhingra) shared their idea. In the first meeting itself I decided to do the film. Their pitch was simple: we are trying to make this road film. The initial idea was to make a single-take movie and create that kind of chaos through the journey. Apart from the story, I was very interested in the way they were thinking of making the film. I thought let’s get the emotions and script right and go ahead.
Karan: We thought of Abhishek very early on because there are not many actors who are doing realistic performances the way he does. He has a control hold over his craft. He can control his pitch even when others are hamming their way through in Stree (2018). Shubham’s performance is very much from his gut while Abhishek is from the mind.
Gaurav Dhingra: The production crew had many first-timers. They were handpicked and came together because they believed in the film.
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Abhishek and Shubham, you are playing brothers in Stolen–you are both from Delhi’s Kirori Mal College and you know each other for a long time.
Shubham Vardhan: We were obviously comfortable since we know each other. At the same time, it was a little difficult since you can’t hide your tricks because we know each other so well. In Mumbai, we want to do good and off-beat work but that kind of project doesn’t come our way. It is rare to get the opportunity to work with like-minded people as well as to work on a project that gives importance to craft and story.
Abhishek: We could laugh at each other and tell each other when something was going wrong. That’s not easy. If you are working with co-actors with whom you don’t have chemistry and you cross the line, they might feel bad. It is not about ego but all actors are insecure.
Shubham: We have had a common language for nearly 15 years. So, we can communicate with each other with ease.
A still from Abhishek Banerjee and Shubham Vardhan starrer Stolen.
The film carries a social commentary but is also nuanced. How do you achieve that balance?
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Karan: Genre is mainly about craft and helps in making choices. More than social commentary, my idea was to present how I saw the world. We never thought about preaching or pamphleteering. We were telling the story of characters and real people what could happen if they had an experience like this. If you have a certain perspective of the world, it should automatically reflect in your work.
Gaurav: We wanted the film to be accessible and engaging for everyone. In the age of the internet, what is engaging is commercial.
Even though Stolen was screened at about 40 festivals, why did you not release it in theatres?
Gaurav: Our focus was that we are making a global film. After its Venice Film Festival premiere in 2023, various distributors wanted to buy the film. It was not sold in India. Had it been released in France or Germany first, in no time it would have been pirated. We wanted all theatrical releases to come together in four months and then go to OTT. Or, we wanted a global deal that would release the film at one go. The Amazon Prime Video deal came in. The four executive producers, Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane, Nikkhil Advani and Kiran Rao joined us.
Abhishek: When you are trying to do something disruptive, logic is an important weapon. We did not want that kind of pressure related to the money that you need to raise for marketing in case of a theatrical release and then wonder for how many days the theatres would run it.
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How would you describe the current ecosystem for independent cinema?
Gaurav: The eco-system is not working for independent filmmakers. Part of the reason is that the distribution has crumbled and needs to be innovated. The ticket pricing is high. In the southern part of the country, there is a cap on the ticket prices and marketing budget of a movie. There is a greater need of the exhibition system to have partnership of a different kind with movie makers.
Abhishek: Over the years, I have noticed, everyone wants to be safe business-wise. Hence, the manufacturing goes up but creativity goes down. That’s the case everywhere.
Shubham: The tendency to be safe has stagnated the business. Everything appears to be a copy of each other.
