Madras Cafe is not a biopic on Rajeev Gandhi - Shoojit Sircar

Even as Madras Cafe released worldwide, the chorus of protests from pro - Tamil groups doesn’t show any signs of dying down. To set the record straight on what the Madras Café is all about, Tellychakkar.com caught up with the talented director of the movie Shoojit Sircar. The director is the captain of the ship. Tell us what is Madras cafe all about? The movie is all about an intelligent officer Vikram Singh played by John, who goes to Srilanka where the civil war is going on, for a covert operation. While he is there, he unearths a major politics and conspiracy being hatched against the nation and he tries to get to the root cause of the entire conspiracy. That is what the film is all about. So it’s not related to Rajeev Gandhi’s assassination? No, this is not a biopic or a story based on him. Yes, you may find similarities to that incident. There are events and facts from history. But its fiction inspired from facts. Madras Cafe is not a biopic on Rajeev Gandhi. But there are similarities to that incident, we believe? See, nobody knows what had actually happened. What I have shown is that when a hit squad plans such an incident, how they do it. We have fictionalized it in the movie. Madras Cafe is fiction, adapted from history. And any fictional story will take things from real events. For this film, it is the backdrop of the civil war in Srilanka, so, it refers to all those who were a part of that milieu which includes the rebels, civilians, peace force and both the government of India and Srilanka. What do you have say about the protests of Pro –Tamil groups calling for a ban of the movie? I think these demonstrations are a bit unfair both to filmmakers and audience. How can we decide what’s right and wrong? We should leave it to the audience to decide whether they want to see it or not. Once the censor board has cleared it, it is not good to call for a ban. It’s like hammering our democracy. It’s like restricting the freedom of speech. You have a democratic body like the Censor board who decides about the film. How difficult was it to direct such a movie? It was very challenging to recreate a civil war. I have tried to keep it real. All I can tell you is that on 23 August when the film releases and people walk into the theater, whether they like it or not, I will transport them to the civil war in terms of the ambience. Your choice of actors for the movie is interesting. How did you lock in on John and Nargis Fakhri? There were many options of actors available but John was the most literate when it came to understanding the issue. You see, I am not an industry boy. I am an outside boy. So with the support of my friends, I went to John and to my surprise, he knew about this issue. So when an actor is aware of the subject of the film, it solves a major part of the director’s problem. In fact, it helps to have a literate actor on board. Talking about Nargis, yes she was a little apprehensive about whether she should be doing this role. I told her, I am looking for a foreign journalist and you will only have to talk in English and not Hindi. I also gave her a lot of documentaries and other materials to understand how a war correspondent works. She got a hang of the role and understood this is a serious role and not an eye candy. That made her sign it. Your other actors are new faces. Why did you cast them? With the other cast, I needed credible faces. People who make country’s policy decisions have to be literate and educated people. With Piyush Pandey and Siddhartha Basu, you get that sense. And I believe, Siddhartha would be the new find for Bollywood. Tell us what next can we expect from Shoojit Sircar’s stables? (laughs) Well, I have a film with Ayushmann Khurrana, one script I have to write for John and another script with Amitabh which is the most important thing I have to do after 23rd. I think it’s a clichéd thing to say, but I am a big fan of Mr Bachchan (blushes).