After being feted at some of the most prestigious film festivals in the world, Superboys of Malegaon makes its way to Indian theatres this Friday. Directed by Reema Kagti and written by Varun Grover, the film — from Farhan Akhtar’s Excel Entertainment, Zoya Akhtar’s Tiger Baby and marking the first Amazon MGM release in Hindi — is based on the resourceful real-life character of Nasir Shaikh, a man whose penchant for making films even with limited resources in Malegaon, put his unassuming town on the map.

With Adarsh Gourav playing Nasir, the film’s ensemble cast comprises Vineet Kumar Singh and Shashank Arora, among others. t2 caught up for a chat with the three actors as well as director Reema Kagti on their film which emphasises on the power of dreams. t2 is a media partner of Superboys of Malegaon.

If the international acclaim and the buzz in the festival circuit for Superboys of Malegaon is anything to go by, you have a winner already. What has been the most special compliment that has come your way for the film?

Reema Kagti: We are quite chuffed. It is connecting well, it has landed well. We worked really hard on it. Not just me, the entire cast, crew, and also its producers and partners like Prime Video and Amazon MGM... it is their first Hindi film release. For everybody, it was a labour of love. When you invest so much of yourself in something, it feels good to get this kind of feedback.
Adarsh Gourav: I am very pleased with the turn of events and how it has been received everywhere. We played two housefull shows at the Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto during TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) and 2,000 people watched it with us! It was one of the first times we watched the film and it was incredibly emotional because Nasir bhai (Nasir Shaikh on whose story the film is based) was with us. We did a whole bunch of film festivals. I am so happy that people are connecting with this film and it is being appreciated. I hope that they go to watch this film in theatres in large numbers on February 28.
Vineet Kumar Singh: Roy Thomson Hall actually had 2,600 people and it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The standing ovation didn’t stop! It was a very special moment for the whole team because the audience was from so many countries. When a film reaches the audience on such a big platform and it touches them, it can’t get bigger than that.

Now that the film is coming to our country, our expectations have increased as far as the audience is concerned. I had experienced this with Gangs of Wasseypur. Superboys of Malegaon is also about a gang, but a gang that makes cinema and does it with very few resources. Everyone should watch it to know why it is important to have hopes and dreams. It is also for those who believe in the power of community.
Shashank Arora: I feel proud and privileged to work in Superboys of Malegaon. I have been waiting to see a film like this my whole life. I can’t put a word to the feeling of being a part of this, thanks to Zoya (Akhtar, co-producer), Reema and Varun (Grover, writer) and all these wonderful actors.

The story of Nasir and his friends was captured in the documentary Supermen of Malegaon more than a dozen years ago. What made you feel that a full-length feature film should be made on it?

Reema: Actually, it was more Zoya than me. Zoya had seen the documentary around 2009 and sometime in 2012, she was at The International Oceanian Documentary Film Festival and bumped into Nasir. She told him that she recognised him from the documentary and he told her: ‘I know who you are. I have ripped off some of your father’s (Javed Akhtar) films!’ (Laughs) Zoya started asking him about Malegaon and how he started, his friends and community... she came back to Bombay and that was the first time I heard about it. She also told me that there was so much more to the story, that it was begging for a feature film, and that Nasir was interested in somebody taking it up.

Adarsh Gourav as Nasir

We circled back to him and got his life rights. But it took some time for us to start, and in the meantime, several filmmakers from Mumbai had gone to Malegaon to meet him to ask him for the life rights. But as Nasir puts it, the minute he met Zoya and before giving his life rights to Excel (Entertainment), he went back and watched Luck By Chance (Zoya’s debut directorial) obsessively. And he was like: ‘That is when I knew for sure that she was the right person to take this forward.’ They brought Varun (Grover) on board, he wrote it and then when I came on to direct, he told me that he went back and obsessively watched Talaash! (Laughs) That is what convinced him that I was the right person to direct!

What made you want Varun Grover to write the script?

Reema: Zoya and I mostly write our own work. But at that time, we had so many other commitments, whether it was Made in Heaven or Dahaad. We thought about asking another writer and both of us came up with Varun’s name. As it turns out, he has written a very beautiful multi-layered script which was a dream to direct.

All of you are in the movies for the sheer love and passion for cinema. What was your reaction when you first heard the story of Nasir, a man so unequivocally in love with the movies?

Adarsh: I had heard about the documentary and I finally watched it during a gap year that I had taken after college in 2015. At that point, I had never imagined that there would be a film one day made on this man and about Malegaon. In 2021, Varun Grover and I were working on a short film called Kiss. That is when I read the script for the first time. I was taken in by these people, the conviction, the belief in themselves and the way they went about making their films... the kind of jugaad these guys did and their fascinating stories too. I got the chance to spend a lot of time with Nasir. He has said in one of his interviews that he came to Bombay to get the costume for Gabbar Singh when they were shooting Malegaon Ke Sholay and the place in Chor Bazar he went to turned out to be the same shop that had rented out the clothes for Gabbar Singh for the original Sholay! The hotel that Nasir and his friends would stay at and ideate in the years leading up to him making Malegaon Ke Sholay was called Adarsh Hotel! There are a lot of crazy coincidences like these. I am grateful to the team for trusting me to play Nasir.
Shashank: I love telling stories, and the first thing I felt when I heard about this story was home... you truly feel like you are at home. You see these people in a different part of the country... they too love cinema, they too love acting. And they put everything on the line to do that, just like you did or want to do. So one feels attached to this whole scenario. Nasir’s story is one that every artiste will connect with immediately. Every artiste wants to express themselves desperately, even within such tight limitations as Nasir and his friends had. I was blown away by the fact that I am going to be a part of this cool world and be with the most vibrant bunch of people making a film about another vibrant bunch of people. It was cathartic and fulfilling.
Vineet: Jab maine first time yeh suna tha toh mujhe laga tha yeh nahi ho sakta. It is truly a remarkable story! Making a film is one of the most difficult things. People generally think that cinema folks just chill and make films. One has to spend just two days on a film set to know what a tough job this is.

So when I heard about what these boys in Malegaon had achieved with little or no resources, I was amazed. A lot of technical aspects are involved in filmmaking. Also, we have to remember that Nasir and his collaborators achieved what they did in the ’90s. Today, things are easy because everyone has a camera on their phones. In the ’90s, these guys caught hold of a handheld camera and made so many films. In doing so, they gave Malegaon a place on the map. History will remember these people.

Reema, is Nasir more relatable because he is a flawed protagonist?

Reema: Definitely. As cinema is evolving, people want to see more and more realism in films and in characters. Nobody is perfect, nobody is black or white. A mix of light and dark creates a more rounded and real person.

In the film, there is a moment of catharsis — even for the viewer — when a key character sees himself on the big screen for the first time. What kind of emotion did you feel when you saw yourself for the first time on screen?

Adarsh: I was very embarrassed! That is because the first time I saw myself on screen, I was crying and throwing a fit on TV. That happened when I was standing in the line to audition for Sa Re Ga Ma Pa in 2005 in Jamshedpur. It was for contestants over age 18 and they caught me because I was underage. I threw a big fit, and that was gold for the camera crew! (Laughs) Everybody came and thrust their cameras in my face. The first time my family and friends saw me on screen was that I was sobbing and screaming that I was not being allowed to audition! (Laughs)
Vineet: Even when I hadn’t started acting, the desire to see myself on screen was very strong. So much so that whenever I would go to a wedding, I would hover around the videographer and push myself into every frame! (Laughs) The problem was that I made it so evident that I wanted to be in the footage, they would edit me out deliberately all the time! When you enter somewhere very consciously, then you spoil the frame. I would stand and look at the camera directly and kill the whole feel. So they would edit me out first!
Shashank: It was traumatising to see myself on screen for the first time. I realised my acting was bad. I told myself that I would have to improve. So, watching myself on screen for the first time was a mixture of happiness and trauma and the realisation that I had a long way to go as an actor.

Farogh, played by Vineet, is upright and ethical. Is it realistically possible to hold on to one’s ideals as much as Farogh does, especially in the world of the movies?

Reema: Maybe not. Farogh is definitely more idealistic than the others. In that sense, Varun has done very well to touch upon every kind of creative person in his script. Nasir is also creative but he has a balance, which Farogh doesn’t.
Vineet: You have to have many things in filmmaking. You can’t just say that you are feeling something and you want to do it. It is not easy. Reema used the right word, which is ‘balance’. Balance is the key to filmmaking. Farogh is someone who doesn’t know about practical realities.
Reema: Interestingly, it is through him that we explore the idea of what is art, who should be making it and who an artiste truly is. You have to see things in relativity... Nasir and his friends had so little in terms of resources... hence, the question arises that can we really judge them on the basis of the technicalities of their film or should we be looking at their spirit and their compulsion to create. He may have spoofed Bollywood films but the fact remains that he did make a film from Malegaon, he cast people from Malegaon and he put in the issues of the people of Malegaon in his films. That is why they worked... these people were seeing themselves on screen at a time when nobody else deemed them fit enough to be put on screen.

If you go to Malegaon, you will see that all of them are film crazy! And that is what propelled them into making films. They didn’t have much... they were essentially loom workers... people who didn’t really have opportunities, jobs or money, and yet could circumvent and do what they wanted to do. When we went to Malegaon, we saw that everybody has a bit of a swag, and that is what tells you that they are a cinema-crazy town.

Name a spoof or a parody that you like.

Reema: It is a mockumentary called This is Spinal Tap. It is fantastic!
Shashank: Mine is Exit Through the Gift Shop by Banksy, a parody of graffiti and graphic art. It is interesting because it is a parody of the man who shot the documentary, being narrated by the man who edited the documentary.
Vineet: For me, it is Malegaon Ke Sholay. It is very difficult to make a spoof of Sholay because the original is such a cult film and yet Nasir achieved it.
Adarsh: It is not exactly a spoof but I love The Disaster Artist, which is on Tommy Wiseau’s life and has James Franco playing Wiseau. It is hilarious!