For director Shoojit Sircar, it’s all about grabbing the audience’s attention and holding on to it with a slice-of-life moment and a tale that’s worth telling. The director, who is proud of his Bengali roots, puts it bluntly: “I am not a director who loves making potboiler films. My films are all about hope because I am an optimistic person.”

Sircar also likes to mix it up and tell different types of multilayered tales. His last story was Piku, the unexpected hit of 2015. Now, he’s back with Pink, a very different type of hard-hitting intense film. Also, this time round, he is the movie’s producer and has brought in noted Bengali director Aniruddha Roychowdhury (better known as Tony to friends, family and cast) to mastermind each scene.

The thriller set in Delhi is about a legal battle waged by three young women and revolves around the thin line between sexual assault and self-defence. The film brings together three young actresses, Taapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Andrea Tariang. Also waging a gripping courtroom battle is Amitabh Bachchan, who plays a steely-faced courtroom lawyer. The movie is produced by Sircar and his partner Ronnie Lahiri.

Says Sircar: “During the time I was busy making Piku, Aniruddha came up with a one-line idea and said he wanted to make it as a Bengali film.” He adds: “Much later when my wife pointed to a newspaper article on the growing number of atrocities against women, it made me feel guilty and inspired me to research more on the topic. I suggested to Tony that we should make it in Hindi.”

The movie’s star is unquestionably Bachchan, who has razor-sharp, harsh and hard-hitting dialogues. Sircar makes no secret about the fact that he loves making movies with the Big B and they’ve teamed up earlier for Piku and another film, Shoebite, which has not yet been released. Says Sircar: “Amitji is like an addiction after a certain point. He is always there on my radar if I think of a film. For this film too, I thought about him and took a chance. He blindly trusted me and gave us the dates way too early when we weren’t even ready with the script.”

This time round, Sircar is the producer but he did detailed research on the film before a single scene was shot, along with his director and the screenplay writer Ritesh Shah. In fact, Sircar admits that he still thinks more about the creative side of making movies rather than the business elements that have to be brought together. “I am not a producer who’s always thinking about controlling budgets. I was actively involved in the creative side in each and every department from writing to direction to editing. I worked almost as an assistant director to Tony. As a producer, it is my job to not just facilitate the process of filmmaking but give my director all he wants.”

Roychowdhury, who has directed Pink, is ecstatic about the experience of shooting the film and working with Sircar. He says: “The kind of suggestions and inputs I got from Shoojit were immense. He’s more a friend and then a producer and director. Every frame in the film reflects his honesty and passion. Filmmaking is a collaborative effort and if you find such passionate people it automatically boosts your confidence.”

Sircar started his career making ad films and says that the discipline learnt during that time helps him to finish his films way ahead of schedule. He says: “I am fast and don’t like to waste time while shooting. I am very clear about what I want to do and don’t like to delay projects unnecessarily.”

The 30-second medium is still his bread and butter but full-length feature films excite him much more. He says: “Ad films are pure business propositions where you have to sell your soul and principles sometimes. But it also teaches you so much. Making ad films helps me to brush up my skills whereas making feature films is therapeutic.”

Irrfan Khan, who had teamed with Sircar in his last film Piku, heaps praise on the director. He says: “He breaks stereotypes, experiments, and he doesn’t stick to a safe genre. In Piku, it was Shoojit’s trust in me that he gave me a romantic lead. In one of the shots, he was floored by my expression of looking at Deepika Padukone who was sitting at the back of the car.”

Up next for Sircar will be Runningshaadi.com directed by newcomer Amit Roy. This film will be a romantic-comedy and the story surrounds a website which helps couples to elope and get married. The film stars young actors Taapsee Pannu and Amit Sadh. Sircar is toying with various other projects, but hasn’t finalised any yet.

It must be said that Sircar came to the Hindi film industry with impressive credentials as an ad filmmaker. He was the brain behind memorable ads like Lyril, Ponds, Titan, Tata Sky and Airtel. He doesn’t like to point to favourites, but reckons that his most memorable ad has been with Bachchan while working on the Gujarat tourism commercial. For this ad, he travelled with the actor extensively to various parts of Gujarat. In 2007, he set up his film production house, Rising Sun Films with his friend and partner Ronnie Lahiri.

Lahiri, his partner, adds: “Both for me and Shoojit, films are not about running our houses. We don’t make films to prove a point. We make films out of passion and we take something up only when we get a compelling story.”

Sircar grew up in Barrackpore in north Calcutta and then shifted to Delhi. But it was when he was studying at Delhi University that his tryst with theatre began. He became an active member of Act 1, a theatre group in Delhi which he set up along with theatre director N.K. Sharma and actor Manoj Bajpayee in 1990. Advertising happened by chance when he got the opportunity to work with adman Pradeep Sarkar and quiz show host Siddhartha Basu. But his biggest turning point came when he directed music videos for Shubha Mudgal’s Mann ke Manjeere. In 2005, he shifted to Mumbai while making his debut film Yahaan.

Yahaan was a love story set in strife-ridden Kashmir starring Jimmy Shergill and Minissha Lamba and Sircar went beyond the breathtaking scenery and trained his camera on the brutal realism of the valley. Although the movie was acclaimed critically, it wasn’t a huge hit. That came seven years later in 2012 when John Abraham backed his second venture Vicky Donor, a realistic comedy on sperm donation that struck gold. Both of them collaborated again on Madras Caf鸠a dark narrative on terrorism. Sircar’s most recent film Piku was about an unusual father-daughter relationship.

If realism is his forte, his other big skill is to bring out the characteristics and ethos of different regions. Yahaan was set in Kashmir, and in Vicky Donor, Sircar deftly tackled the Punjabi versus Bong cultural stereotypes to generate some laugh-out-loud moments. His last release Piku, set in Delhi’s Chittaranjan Park area, had Bachchan playing an ageing Bhashkor Banerjee and Padukone as his daughter.

He says: “The trick to portray the quirkiness of different cultures stems from the fact that wherever I go, I start living in that place. Each character is inspired by real life people around me. Be it Vicky Donor or Piku, I have tried to capture those everyday subtle moments.”

Sircar reckons his working style is simple and basic. He likes to bond with his actors and team members. He says: “I am a very calm person. I bother only about whether my actors are comfortable in the environment. In all my films, I try to create an environment for the actors to give their best. I keep it very playful.”

Although as a director he wants to experiment with various genres of filmmaking, it’s the slice-of-life comedies which he is known for. Sircar, who is hugely influenced by Satyajit Ray’s grammar of filmmaking, also looks up to directors like Basu Chatterjee and Hrishikesh Mukherjee who presented slices of life in their films. Says Sircar: “Strong in message yet lighter in thought is how I see my cinema. For me, wholesome family entertainers are what I like making. I don’t bother about losing. I just feel that even if my films fail, I have my integrity.”

The director still shuttles between Mumbai and Calcutta, where his family — his wife Jhuma and daughters Koena and Ananya — live. And like many others in his home state, his other two passions include football and good food. He says: “Football is actually my first love. I take it as a serious sport. I have a football gang in Mumbai which has Ranbir Kapoor, Abhishek Bachchan, who is the captain, Dino Morea and Siddharth Malhotra. We practice seriously on Sunday mornings in Bandra followed by a football adda.”

Sircar, who also takes great interest in cooking, says that food breaks are crucial on his set. He laughs: “On a Sunday when I come back after playing football, I cook a hearty meal. My mantra for keeping my unit together is good food. I make sure that my actors and unit members are fed well.”

For now, though, he is keeping his fingers crossed for his upcoming film. He sums up his moviemaking philosophy briefly and says: “I make films because I want to tell beautiful stories. I don’t plan any film unless my script is ready.”