EXCLUSIVE | 'The Vaccine War' director Vivek Agnihotri confirms Mamta Banerjee's reference in his next 'The Delhi Files'

Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri is gearing up for his next film The Vaccine War, which is releasing on September 28 in cinemas. It’s a film that shows how the nation developed a vaccine when it was dealing with one of the biggest crisis in history- Covid-19. It stars Nana Patekar, Pallavi Joshi, and Anupam Kher in pivotal roles. In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, Agnihotri opened up on what inspired him to make a film on this subject, the challenges he faced when the globe was under lockdown, and his expectations from the film after the success of _The Kashmir Files_. Edited excerpts from the interview How did the idea of making The Vaccine War come about? The entire world shut down three years back and there was only darkness and no hope, and the enemy was invisible. After 8-9 months, when I took the vaccine, I couldn’t even feel I took the vaccine. That’s what fascinated me and I asked myself as to who made these vaccines. Everyone said India will never be able to make a vaccine, 40-50% of the population will perish, and that we have a poor medical infrastructure. I asked who are these people that keep working and we don’t even recognize them. That’s how the whole journey started. This is a superhero story for our young generation, and also a story that can be seen 50 years later. This film is going to be a milestone chapter. What were the challenges you faced as a filmmaker and otherwise during the pandemic? We were going for the shoot of _The Kashmir Files_ and had to cancel everything two days before, that was the big challenge. The research for _The Vaccine War_ wasn’t a big challenge because we weren’t doing much of physical work and Zoom was there, the digital methods were available to us. Once the lockdown was over, the restrictions were over, we started traveling to Delhi, Pune, visiting labs and meeting scientists. Then I immersed myself completely into the research. Nana Patekar is a very interesting casting choice. He’s the actor known for his dialogues in films like Tiranga and Krantiveer. How did you think of his name? One day, we all were sitting in our office and discussing how Dr Balram Bhargav is someone who has very high credibility. We wanted someone who had very high credibility when it came to his performance, and Pallavi suggested us to cast someone who has never compromised on his role. We realised how some of the greatest actors and biggest stars have compromised on their roles, but Nana was the only actor who doesn’t have a single bad performance in his body of work. He’s the kind of an actor with a tough physicality, and when he says he’ll deliver, it means he will. Everyone advised me not to work with him as he’s the most difficult actor to work with, but he was the easiest person in my entire career to work with. He completely surrendered, never questioned anything, and made everyone work harder. His contract says he won’t work for more than eight hours but he ended up working for 12-16 hours every day, he refused to leave the set. Is there a reference of Kolkata and Mamta Banerjee in the film as well? No, this film has nothing to do with it, that’s The Delhi Files you’re talking about. The Kashmir Files was about exodus of the Kashmiri pandits, and this is a film that talks about the battle the nation fought against the virus. What is it that has inspired you or motivated you to tell real life stories? I’ve always wanted to go into new worlds, new characters, and I don’t repeat myself. My first film Chocolate was a suspense thriller, which was immediately followed by a film on football. Which director moves from a thriller to a film on sports? I then made Hate Story that was a woman oriented subject but told in an erotic style. Buddha in a Traffic Jam was about campus politics. _The Tashkent Files_ was about the controversial death of the Prime Minister of India, so I don’t repeat myself. I don’t have any particular genre. The Tashkent Files and The Kashmir Files were both successful films, but do you agree with the critical analysis of both the films? Who’s a critic today? Everyone has a price today and everyone is for sale. I can make them write anything on social media, if I want these trade people and critics to write that my film has done 100 crore on day one, they’ll write it. They have also started reviewing posters and teasers on YouTube and social media; who does that? Who has so much of time? The trailer of The Vaccine War dropped a few days back, it’s a very important film for India, it’s India’s first bio-science film, it’s Nana Patekar’s comeback after five years, it’s being made by the most successful woman producer of India, Pallavi Joshi, it’s being made by a National award-winning director, it’s based on one of the greatest achievements of India, and nobody has reviewed our trailer. This is because I refuse to pay a single penny to anyone. When they spoke about the films that are releasing this year, The Vaccine War was never there. Recently, in one of the mainstream newspapers or sites, they were speaking about the releases of September, and they had names like Fukrey and Chandramukhi, but the name of The Vaccine War wasn’t there. This is because we don’t pay money.