Shujaat Saudagar on his and Ali Fazal's film The Underbug's Slamdance 2023 premiere: 'Had no expectations'

Filmmaker Shujaat Saudagar, who has made _The Underbug_ that stars Ali Fazal, Hussain Dalal, and Areenah Fatima, was premiered at the Indian Film Festival Of Melbourne 2023 and also premiered at Slamdance 2023 . The film, this year, was awarded the Slamdance Breakouts Feature Grand Jury Prize. Speaking about The Underbug, Saudagar said, “We were just grateful that we got selected. We had no expectations even when we put in the film for the festivals. I personally, have never been or applied to festivals, I just went with Shaunak’s instinct and one fine morning, I woke up and had got this mail. It took me a while to decipher. I called Shaunak and he said, I told you, I told you we’ll get it. It was exciting. Then we made the trip all the way to Utah, Park City. We saw an amazing bunch of films, met some fantastic filmmakers. The festival itself was amazing, it has some amazing people who run it and organize it.” Shaunak Sen is the Executive Producer on The Underbug. He was also nominated at the Oscars for his film All That Breathes. Shujaat added, “We were there for 10 days and decided to be a part of the award ceremony and we won. It was a complete and total surprise! I just didn’t expect that, it was a bit overwhelming and emotional at that moment.” When asked about his expectations from IFFM 2023, he said, “I think it’s an important film. It has an important message. It talks about pushing mankind over smaller values like religious, political and social values and focus on what’s more important in today’s times – human values. Of course, it’s told in a very thrilling and dramatic fashion but the intent with the film has always been reaching as large an audience as possible – across the globe.”