Arun Gopalan makes his feature film debut with the cross-border thriller Tehran, starring John Abraham on the heels of international operatives. A t2 chat as the film drops on Zee5.
Congratulations on the launch finally taking place. Tehran was initially slated for release on August 15, 2023, right?
Yes, but we were waiting for the right opportunity. There couldn’t have been a better time than now.
But you had planned it for a theatrical release!
Definitely, this would have been amazing on the big screen. But I think what we got with Zee5 as a partner is definitely going to get us the reach that we need. So that way, I’d say coming on OTT is a boon for us.
Tell us about your background.
I’m an advertising filmmaker. I’ve been directing for 20 years now. I launched Air India when Tata took over and rebranded the logo. Ten years back, we did a recruitment campaign for the Indian Army. It was a three-month project for which we travelled all over India and shot right from the NDA (National Defence Academy) Pune, to Siachen. We went to every state and shot every Army corps — artillery, Special Forces, infantry... that was the big project for us. After that, I knew that I had to get into features.
There have been several car explosions in front of the Israel embassy in Delhi over the years. Which one is Tehran based on?
This blast was near the Prime Minister’s residence, in 2012. An Israeli diplomat was travelling, and Iran targeted his vehicle. He was one of three Israeli diplomats targeted across the world. One was in Georgia, one in Thailand, and the third in India. All three happened at the same time. Our cop, Rajiv Kumar (the character played by John Abraham in Tehran), figures out that it is not Pakistan but someone else who’s behind this.
The one in Georgia in real life didn’t explode, right?
You’re right. They diffused the bomb. But in Thailand, it did explode. And one of the Iranian guys who was making the bomb lost his leg.
When was the story written?
It was started in 2021, right after Covid. Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, who used to be with Delhi Police, had a great story. He was the investigating officer who had handled the case. Sandeep Leyzell, the co-producer, approached me. I asked him to tell me the story in one line. He said: “It’s about an officer who feels that India cannot be the battleground for two other warring countries.” And I was immediately convinced. How can Iran and Israel decide to fight in India? There would definitely be collateral damage if it’s a bomb! So it was important to bring the culprits to justice.
Once Sandeep got me the story, I worked on it. The earlier draft had felt wrong. In that story, our officers go to Thailand and kill Thai people. They inflict some damage in Malaysia where Malaysian citizens get killed. I said: “How is this different from the core thought of ‘Don’t make India your battleground’? You’re making these countries your battlegrounds!” I made changes and narrated the story. The producers loved it.
How much are you deviating from what actually happened? How much is known?
We know quite a bit and we’ve stuck to that. The blast did happen. There was a journalist who did a recce for the Iranians. We kept all the core strands. And then, of course, we had to take some liberties.
There must be a lot of action, which demands big-screen treatment. What was the problem with theatrical release?
Of course, visually this was made for the theatres. But what is important for a theatrical release is to connect with the masses, correct? Here we’re dealing with Israel and Iran and also Mossad, Hamas, IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), which is the Iranian wing of the army... so many people were involved, and we couldn’t risk dubbing the film. We had to keep it in their respective languages. So there’s Hebrew, Farsi, English, Hindi..., Now, how can someone in a remote place in Bihar understand these languages? They can’t. So the only option was to dub the entire film, which we didn’t want to do. So Dinu (Dinesh Vijan of Maddock Films) said let’s release it on OTT, which gives the option of switching on the subtitles and watching it in the language of one’s choice. There would be no need to dub. Dubbing kills a film. Here we’ve stayed true to the original language that people spoke. Hence, OTT made sense for all of us.
So you didn’t want to release a subtitled film on the big screen?
I had a slate at the start of the film, which I have removed now, which said: ‘Subtitles recommended’, and then below that, I wrote, ‘…unless you’re fluent in Hebrew, Farsi, English and Hindi’. Now, which language subtitles do I put in? I cannot put all the languages, so we had to make a choice between English and Hindi. To have both the languages would fill up the screen. It would look really bad. One subtitle is great, but you can’t have two.
Did the current geopolitical situation, where Israel is the aggressor, while in your film Israel is the victim, have anything to do with it?
No, Israel is not the victim in Tehran. It is just that Israel’s car was attacked. But John is not trying to fight for Israel. John is fighting for India, and saying that, “Don’t make India your battleground. Take your war to any other country. I don’t want collateral damage in my country.” That’s all he’s saying. That’s what the film is about.
John has been known to do such action-packed films earlier. How was your experience of working with him?
Once you see this film, you’ll know that I haven’t approached it as an action film. The action was necessary in certain places, which we tackled in a realistic way. But the core messaging and purpose of John being there was, like I said, he’s braving all odds to bring the perpetrators to justice. So for him and me, the focus was on telling the story with honesty, with urgency, leaving policy, politics and diplomacy aside. The politics and diplomacy were just the backdrop in a story which is all about human trust. We show all these agencies — RAW, the ministry of external affairs — how they were involved, how they supported each other, how they crossed each other’s paths, what happens in the world of geopolitics and how human lives are at stake in diplomacy.
Diplomacy on paper sounds like everything has to be perfect. When the cameras are rolling, people are shaking hands but their decisions have really big consequences. And that affects these officers on the ground whose lives could be at stake when such decisions are taken.
In the trailer, we hear someone telling John’s character “Your country has abandoned you…”
That’s the truth. The film is not about saying India did this. For us, India is not one person. India’s people make India what it is. And people like John’s character, like Neeru Bajwa — she’s working with RNA — and the others in the film, are the ones who make India. There are unseen things that influence decisions. For example, there was a gas deal between India and Iran that was going on, and that gas deal was critical for us. In one context, someone points out that this gas deal shouldn’t get hampered. But this man on the ground, Rajiv Kumar, didn’t want to think about the gas deal. His worry was what if another explosion takes place, and “my daughter or my wife is nearby?” For the diplomat, it’s about cracking a deal for the country. So both are doing it for the country, but each has his own reason. These people are unsung heroes.
John Abraham also stars in your next film, Tariq. Which did he sign first? What stage is that film in?
He signed Tehran first. I’m still writing Tariq. Now we are just waiting for the release of Tehran, and after that we will get on to Tariq.