Filmmaker Aanand L Rai says he is looking forward to collaborate with director Anurag Kashyap for an upcoming project.
There were reports that the Tanu Weds Manu director has roped in Kashyap to direct movies for his production house, Colour Yellow Production.
“[Kashyap] is one of my favourite directors. I always wanted to collaborate and do something. Now that we have got an opportunity, we are doing it,” Rai told reporters in Mumbai on Thursday.
Kashyap, who directed Raman Raghav 2.0, will reportedly direct two films, one of which would be a small-town love story set in Uttar Pradesh, but no information was shared on them and Rai said it would be better if Kashyap told them about it.
Rai was speaking during a party to celebrate the success of the Manoj Bajpayee starrer Aligarh at the 10th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA). Bajpayee won the best performance award in the Hansal Mehta directed film that is set in the city of Aligarh and revolves around Professor Shrinivas Ramchandra Siras (played by Bajpayee), a sensitive Marathi language professor, who lost his job and was ostracised for his sexual orientation.
Rai said it takes courage for filmmakers to tell a story like that on the big screen.
“These are the times where we should tell all these new stories. It’s an opening for us as filmmakers and even audience,” he said. “It’s a growing industry in terms of stories, thinking, so we need these gutsy directors to come up and give us a new beginning,” he said.
When asked why don’t off-beat films work that well at the box office, the 45-year-old Raanjhanaa director said it is because directors are often scared to narrate gutsy stories.
“The more stories we tell, the audience will get habitual and movies will work,” he said.
