‘This Is The New Way Of Indian Cinema’

Prime Video’s ‘Stolen’ has been winning hearts worldwide with its intriguing storyline and stellar performances. From receiving praise at various film festivals to getting a global release on Prime Video, the movie is getting its long-due recognition. In an exclusive interview with News24, the film’s lead actor Abhishek Banerjee, director Karan Tejpal and producer Gaurav Dhingra speak about their journey of making Stolen, the film’s delay, receiving immense from the film industry and much more.  

Abhishek Banerjee has done several intense roles in his career but his performance in Stolen is different from his other projects. Talking about his preparation for doing scenes in ‘Stolen’, he shares, “I did not think of communicating anything through my character apart from what was given to me in the script. In commercially designed films, you need to know exactly how the audience will react to a particular joke or particular punch or things like that. And you also have that kind of reaction time in a commercial film. But in a film like Stolen, which also I feel is a very commercial film.”

“But this commercial film acting is different from probably the ones which I have done. It is designed in a way that you can’t remove your attention from the screen for 90 minutes. So the kind of attention I want from the audience and I need to play the character as it’s happening then and there. Also, it’s because of the real-time film,” he adds.

Sharing how his co-stars helped him in the scenes, he reveals, “It has been difficult to explore these emotions and thanks to Shubham and Mia, they did not come from any baggage. This is the first big project for both of them and I was just reacting to the way they were acting.”

There are several one-take shots and intense chase scenes in the film as well that are truly a treat to watch. Revealing how he shot those scenes, director Karan Tejpal says, “We could say coordination, practice rehearsals. Everybody has to be on the same page. And, yes, they were challenging, but also, I mean, if it is not challenging, it is not fun.”

“We embraced the challenge and it was a decision taken well in advance. The support from Gaurav and the actors brought a lot of determination and dedication to enable us to do this. Then the crew who also very soon understood, and got on board with with this kind of style of shooting.”

Calling the challenge ‘fun’, he says, I think, as I said, the challenge is fun. It was really fun. We were just playing games.”

Karan also shares how the intense scene with mobs was filmed and how Abhishek helped him. He reveals, “It was all on rehearsals, pre-planning, a lot of pre-planning. Everybody in the crew was totally on board with this.”

Praising Abhishek, Karan adds, “Abhishek made sure that he did the rehearsal with the crowd again and again until they learnt what they had to do. Those people were non-actors and till the time they got the scene, he spent the time doing rehearsals and we got it right in only three takes. It was a very collaborative effort that every crew member brought their game to achieve.”

‘Stolen’ received high praise in several film festivals but releasing it in India was a challenge. However, the team received support from the industry and it finally got its big OTT release on Prime Video.

Recalling his experience and frustration of releasing ‘Stolen’, producer Gaurav Dhingra says, “We knew we made a really good film. We knew it because of not when we made it. I believe that from the moment I heard and I said, no. I wanna do this. That we will come up with something nice. And now I have something nice. I’m just not finding the right way to get it to the human species. That was really frustrating for me. This is also something I committed to my partners, Abhishek and Karan who really supported every move that I made. So not being able to deliver to them was actually really, daunting to me.”

He also expresses his delight in the global success of Stolen. Gaurav adds, “We are trending worldwide on the third day of the launch. Abhishek is not a star on the globe. Nobody knows Karan or Gaurav Dhingra. This is the power of what we created together. This was our vision, and it’s coming true now. And I’m particularly thrilled.”

To this, Abhishek adds how people often focus on the negative aspects of the industry but it was the film industry that supported the film. He says, “The best part is that we always talk negatively about the industry, the studio setup, big networks coming into play and how they innovate, control the kind of releases and what comes out, and what doesn’t come out. But for Stolen, I can really tell you that it has been a very smooth ride that way. Yes, there were some there’s there was some confusion about how to sell the film, market the film, but there was no doubt that the film was good. And that is why the directors like Nikkhil Advani, Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane, and Kiran Rao came together. Amazon Prime Video just backed it with all their power and pull.”

“It’s like what I always say that OTT has democratized the entertainment industry that somebody sitting in Delhi can conceive a film with another friend of his and make a film in, Pushkar, Rajasthan and bring it to Bombay without any Bombay support. I think this is the new way of Indian cinema,” he adds.

Echoing Abhishek’s emotions, Gaurav further shares, “People like the stature of, Anurag and Vikram, Nikkhil and Kiran are our idols. We’ve watched Black Friday, Udaan and more. We grew up and aspiring to be this person. And then they come and say that we’ll help you. They came on board, two months ago, and said, we’ll help you to promote the film, push Amazon, and work with them to create a strategy. So they were very helpful in the end part of it.”

“And since they saw it, they were very eager to support us. As Abhishek said, this is the way I mean, and Karan has been saying it in many of his interviews also that this is kind of gonna be the future because I think the volume of content that is being made, you need there is a greater need of curation.”

Sharing the concluding thoughts on the need to make more movies like Stolen in future, Abhishek says, “This is the beginning. How often do you see a film with this kind of budget, being pitched as an action film? We have a very different idea of action films, and this is like a proper one-night-road action thriller. This is the beginning of that era. Very soon, I’m sure that there might be a stolen two which will come into theatres.”

Stolen is available to watch on Prime Video.