Indrajit Lankesh has returned to film direction after five years. His latest venture Shakeela, starring Richa Chadha and Pankaj Tripathi, will be releasing in theatres on December 25. The film is a biopic based on the life of south Indian actor Shakeela who garnered fame in the Malayalam cinema industry in the 90s. The film will be released in five languages: Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.
The director, who is already working on adapting his father P. Lankesh’s award winning story for his next venture, said that people raised eyebrows when he decided to make this biopic. But, Lankesh was determined to tell Shakeela's story to the world.
In an interview with TNM, Indrajit says that he has attempted to tell her story of rags to riches to rags from a humane perspective, and hopes to celebrate her through his film as a person and not only as an adult film actor.
I had always known that Shakeela was a yesteryear superstar. However, it was only during the making of my films Monalisa and Love You Alia—in which she did character roles—that I started to get to know her story. Shakeela is a woman who has endured hardships throughout her life, despite her stardom that lasted for a decade before she was shadowbanned from the film industry. I wanted to tell her story to the world and that’s how I ideated on the film and made it after acquiring the necessary rights from her.
Earlier, films unexpectedly went global, unlike current times when we consciously have to try and make films that resonate globally. The films today have larger audiences, and I was also thinking of a pan-Indian perspective while I wrote this film. I wanted to tell her story on a larger scale and the Hindi cinema industry does have a larger market.
Richa Chadha and Pankaj Tripathi are the finest actors in the industry today; and that's why they were cast in the film. Apart from them, I have actors like Rajeev Pillai, Esther Norhona and Suchendra Prasad who are prolific actors, too. Since I had the best of people from across industries in my team, it all sailed smoothly. We, as a team, did a lot of homework before and during the making of this film.
It [the film] does not just look at Shakeela’s identity as an adult star from the 90s; it goes beyond that. Despite having worked in more than 250 films, she leads a hand-to-mouth existence. She is also a person and I aimed at showing that person in the film. Moreover, Richa, as an actor, puts in a lot of effort. She tried to understand her instead of just mimicking her body language. This helped me in showcasing the vision I had of this story.
Even in contemporary society, women, unfortunately, have to go through similar hardships and are under constant scrutiny. They face harassment, and Shakeela had to face similar issues in life. Her films would be screened across cities, towns and villages and were being dubbed in multiple languages like Japanese, Nepalese and Sinhalese. Her films were screened in theatres for years and there were no screens for male stars. The men grew insecure of her success and othered her by using deceitful methods. Women still lose opportunities and have to face criticism and struggle hard to break the glass ceiling. Even in the film industry, there’s an issue of lack of scripts being written for women and wage pay-gap. So, in a broader sense, the film is about all the women. The society is still hypocritical and judgmental. My film tries to hold a mirror without being didactic.
Yes, I did approach this film in a different way. Even though films were an important part of Shakeela’s life, it was not just that aspect that interested me. I wanted to portray her time as a superstar when she was overpowering the male-dominated Malayalam film industry. Apart from that, I also wanted to show her life after she stopped getting films. My film has a raw aura, a realistic edge to it.
Like I mentioned earlier, I was thinking in a broader context. I was not looking for a person who looked like her [Shakeela]. What if I had found a person who looked like her but couldn’t act? My vision would not have translated on to the screen as it did with Richa. She comes prepared and tries to get into the skin of the character, that eases the work of a director. She’s done justice to the role.
Yes, of course. When we decided to shoot the film, we decided that the setting would be that of Kerala since she worked predominantly in the Malayalam cinema industry. It is indeed about culture, but across India, when it comes to films, we all speak the same language. An actor plays diverse characters. Even though it is a film on an actor based in south India, we tried to paint it on a larger canvas. The regional language cinema is seeing exponential growth, the barriers that once existed are being broken. You just have to tell your story. In that sense, I indeed think we have been able to get past the cultural differences and contexts.
I would like to request people to go and watch the film in theatres since it’s releasing globally in over 2,000 screens and in five languages. Shakeela was a superstar and ruled the theatres in the '90s, and viewing the film in theatres will be a justification of her work. I also request the viewers to go and watch the film without expectations. I can assure them that they will surely enjoy it.