2020, apart from being the year when the entire world was forced to stay inside their homes, was good for Indian talent in a way- it transcended all boundaries.
AWARDS AND NOMS GALORE
While recognition had certainly been coming our way in the past too, 2020 saw a lot of it happening on a large scale. It started with the International Emmy nominations. Arjun Mathur, who starred in Made in Heaven, bagged one for Best performance by an Actor. “The nomination, I have to say I never really worked for validation, but things like this, we can only dream of, and none of us expect ki mere saath ho jaayega!,” he exclaims.
Adil Hussain on the other hand won the Best Actor award for his film Pareeksha at the Indo-German film week.
Next in the line were the shows Four More Shots Please! and Delhi Crime. The former was nominated for Best Comedy, the latter was nominated for Best Drama Series- and won it too! Pooja Kohli Taneja, executive producer on Delhi Crime says what she feels worked in the show’s favour. It was based on the 2012 Delhi gang rape case’ investigation.
“We took blessings from the parents of Jyoti before going on the floor, we had worked with the cops, Richie (Mehta, director) had worked on this for about four years with research to make sure that everything was authentically charted. There were no embellishments and no fictionalisation as to how the case was solved, sure there was some dramatised sort of inputs in amalgamation of the characters, but mostly it was done in the right way following procedures,” she says.
Nupur Asthana, who directed season 2 of Four More Shots Please! says it’s a matter of great pride that an Indian show is recognized constantly at an international level. “It’s definitely a big deal for us. The context of the lives of our urban female characters may be rooted in urban India with their specific issues, but their emotional journeys are completely universal; and that’s what I think has appealed to audiences internationally. It was wonderful to see that the show (second season) scooped an international recognition at the Asian Content Awards, Busan International Film Festival 2020, South Korea,” she says.
HOLLYWOOD ROLES
Dhanush has been roped in for a Hollywood film, Russo Brothers’ The Gray Man, and will star alongside Chris Evans, Ryan Gosling And Ana De Armas. Priyanka Chopra Jonas, already carving out a career in the West, got one more Hollywood film in her kitty, Text For You.
Adil goes on to add that it was the actors from the previous generation such as late Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah and late Irrfan, who ‘opened the doors’ for Indian actors.
Kirti Kulhari, who starred in Four More Shots Please, says the world is opening up, “The world is opening up, and this change has a lot to do with OTT platforms as well. We owe it to them that our work is reaching the world, and vice vera. The boundaries are kind of being destroyed, for the better.”
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