In the offices of Dibakar Banerjee, located in an old building in south Bombay, a whiteboard lists scenes from the shooting of his latest film, whose working title was Freedom. After the assassination in 2017 of Indian journalist Gauri Lankesh, who openly criticized Hindu nationalists, the 53-year-old filmmaker decided to take an artistic look at the bigotry that poisons his country. He wanted to make it a work for the Indian middle class, from which he himself comes and whose silence in the face of the rise of religious intolerance dismays him.
In India, Dibakar Banerjee’s films are generally considered “sophisticated”, compared to Bollywood productions.
Asked about the fate of his latest feature film, the affable director suddenly pauses, as if he had just taken a hit. “My movie is a Netflix original, it’s finished, but I don’t know when the platform plans to release it,” he said.
Filmmaker’s Wrath
Filming wrapped in mid-2021, and the film was set to air at the end of that year. Since then, nothing. “Netflix told me they weren’t sure if now was the best time to show it,” he explains. The platform said it was however delighted, in January 2020, to announce four new Indian productions, including Freedom. She had already produced, in 2018, Lust Stories, a critically acclaimed anthology of four shorts featuring Dibakar Banerjee.
But, after months of dithering, Netflix won’t release it after all. “I sold my film to someone who doesn’t want to show it and I can’t do anything about it”, regrets the director, who says he is deeply angry. Contacted by Mr. Netflix declines to comment officially. A company executive nevertheless confirms the information, on condition of anonymity. “We look forward to working with Dibakar Banerjee again in the future, he is a fantastic designer and we are grateful to him and his team,” he is content to specify, without taking the risk of venting on the reasons for this refusal.
Since then, Dibakar Banerjee has been fighting for his film to be seen. “Besides, you haven’t seen it”, he throws. And to spontaneously propose to project it in his office, once the interview is over. “Maybe that’s how my film will reach its audience, one viewer after another,” he jokes.
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