Anubhav Sinha Talks Flight With Netflix’s ‘IC 814’ Hijack Drama

After a 27-year hiatus from television, veteran Indian filmmaker Anubhav Sinha makes his streaming series debut with Netflix’s ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’.

The six-episode thriller, based on the 1999 Indian Airlines flight hijacking, marks Sinha’s first return to long-form storytelling since his early days on television, including the DD Metro series ‘Sea Hawks’.

The drama, based on the book ‘Flight Into Fear’ by Captain Devi Sharan and Srinjoy Chowdhury, explores the crisis from multiple angles. It offers a multi-faceted look at the incident, covering the tense negotiations in Delhi’s War Room, the high-stakes diplomacy in Taliban-controlled Kandahar, and the terrifying ordeal faced by passengers and crew on board the hijacked plane , are highlighted.

Sinha, known for socially conscious films like ‘Article 15’ and ‘Thapad’, initially resisted the idea of ​​making a series. “I was busy with films, so I wasn’t interested,” he says Variety. However, a persistent pitch from Netflix India content head Monika Shergill and the project’s extensive research changed my mind.

The series was created by Sinha and Trishant Srivastava (“Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga”), under Sinha’s direction. The story is by Adrian Levy and Srivastava. It is produced by Matchbox Shots and Benaras Mediaworks, with Sarita Patil and Sanjay Routray as producers.

“When I walked in, I thought I knew everything about it,” says Sinha. “But once the investigation started, and we had Adrian on board, it started to unfold, not just in India, but in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Washington and everywhere. Then I realized I knew nothing about it. That became the driving force to delve deeper and deeper into it.”

The transition from feature films to series presented Sinha with both challenges and opportunities. “You are constantly aware that this will largely be seen on laptops, tablets and mobile phones,” he explains, noting the potential limitations in visual detail. However, he found freedom in the flexibility of the format: “We didn’t have a set number of episodes when we were writing. So you can take as much time as the story needs.”

Sinha and his team approached the visual style of the series with meticulous planning. “Ewan [Mulligan, the cinematographer alongside Ravi Kiran Ayyagari] asked me a very important question. He said, ‘Anubhav, are we recreating what happened?’ I said, ‘No, the event is happening again. We’re sending our cameras and crew back in time.’” This decision led to a contemporary shooting style applied to historical events.

The series’ visual palette evolves as the story spreads across multiple locations. “We decided that each location will be different from the last,” Sinha explains. From bright, cloudy Kathmandu to misty Amritsar and the golden hues of Dubai, each environment has a distinct look designed to convey the emotional and physical distance of the journey.

Filming at an airport in Jordan presented unique challenges due to its proximity to the Israeli border. “There were sometimes surprising instructions that you can’t shoot in this direction now, or you can’t shoot for two hours,” Sinha recalls. “For those two hours we didn’t know why because it was a very high security area.”

The series features an ensemble cast including Vijay Varma, Kanwaljeet Singh and Arvind Swami. Sinha credits casting director Mukesh Chhabra for helping him put together the group. “By the time we reached Kumud Mishra, Manoj Pahwa and Aditya Srivastava, we thought we were done,” says Sinha. “But then there were two more characters who were just bubbling, and then they became what they became.” Veterans Pankaj Kapoor and Naseeruddin Shah were cast as the leaders of the Indian government’s crisis management group.

Although “IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack” is a standalone story, Sinha remains open to future streaming projects with Netflix. His immediate focus, however, returns to feature films. “I am excited to make films and am finishing some scripts,” he says. “I want to make some bigger films than what I’ve been doing lately. Still films with a voice, but bigger films that rely more heavily on the box office.”

Sinha’s career has spanned several genres, from romantic comedies to action blockbusters such as “Ra.One” (2011) starring Shah Rukh Khan. Now he wants to combine his recent socially conscious work, including ‘Bheed’ (2023), ‘Anek’ (2022), ‘Article 15’ (2019) and ‘Mulk’ (2018), with larger-scale productions. “I feel like doing music, I feel like doing action, I feel like doing visual effects,” he says.

As “IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack” prepares for its global release on Netflix on August 29, Sinha insists he has not changed his approach for international audiences. “I really believe that the more authentic and local you make it, the more appealing it becomes because that’s a flavor they’ve never tasted before,” he says. “I tried to stay as true to the material as possible.”