Neeraj Pandey on Bandon Mein Tha Dum!, the future of documentary storytelling and more

Filmmaker Neeraj Pandey is back with a project revolving around cricket. The M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story director says that his upcoming documentary series, Bandon Mein Tha Dum!, is not just for cricket fans.

The series has four parts that will take viewers to the nail-biting moment when India defeated Australia at the 2020-21 India-Australia test series. The historic triumph happened at Gabba where Australia hadn’t lost a test match for more than three decades. But the victory wasn’t an easy one.

“It’s a fantastic story to begin with. The format was most conducive to tell the story because to recreate, it would have been impossible. With more challenging forms of storytelling coming to the fore and audiences willing to consume them, I thought that it was a great opportunity to tell the story in this format,” he says about making the documentary.

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“The series of matches happened during the coronavirus pandemic. The way the test series unfolded and the whole journey panned out, it was remarkable. It was about individual stories, about team effort, people playing through injuries and much more. There were so many stories within a story during this particular series,” he shares.

The producer, who backed another cricket project, _Kaun Pravin Tambe?_, calls his new documentary series simply thrilling.

“We have managed to get a fantastic ensemble together on this. There are players like Ajinkya Rahane, Washington Sundar and Mohammed Siraj and journalists as well. Everyone has an interesting take on how things panned out, what was going on at that point of time and what exactly was happening behind the scene,” he shares.

Pandey feels that for cricket lovers, it’s going to be a treat. “For non-cricket lovers also, it’s a fantastic story. The whole four-part series is a lesson on man management, team psychology and leadership. We keep talking about all these qualities in our daily lives. Everything is there in the series. That’s the reason why we picked the story. It just goes beyond cricket,” he explains.

Secrets Of Sinauli: Discovery Of The Century is another documentary that Pandey recently worked on.

On the future of documentary storytelling in India, he says, “It’s going to get bigger. When you see a documentary, it is a notch closer to reality. There is an audience that’s ever-growing. When I started off in the media industry, I was into documentaries. And I see a sea of change now. Audiences are now loving it and embracing it. So these are exciting times for people to consume it and people to make it.”

He believes that OTT has definitely helped in making documentaries popular in the country. “We didn’t know where to consume documentaries earlier. Documentaries were hardly screened in theatres in India, so for us there was no destination to go to and figure out where to watch,” he says.

According to the director, known for helming movies like A Wednesday!, Special 26 and Baby, now there is a platform where people can watch documentaries. “People are also understanding that it can be as interesting as fiction,” he says.

The last few years saw him doing digital projects and producing films, and now he is eager to direct a feature film. “Yes, it’s on the cards. We will go on floors in October or November. I’ll be making an announcement soon. Hopefully, we will have a mid-year release in 2023,” says Pandey without revealing if it’s the much-delayed film, Chanakya, with Ajay Devgn.

_Operation Romeo_ and  _Vikram Vedha_ are among his various productions, and both happen to be remakes of south Indian films.

“In all humility, I don’t like to direct a remake for the simple reason that it’s a film that’s already been made. I write and direct my own stuff, but there are so many directors who don’t write and they are always on the lookout for stories. They like to interpret, adapt and go ahead and make a film out of a vernacular film which is fine. We encourage directors who want to look at material which is possible in terms of a remake,” says Pandey.

Bandon Mein Tha Dum! will start streaming on Voot Select from 16 June.

Natalia Ningthoujam is a Manipur-based journalist. She knows how to smoothly switch from being a fan to a writer whenever needed. She tweets at @nattynick.

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