‘Superboys of Malegaon’ Cast and Crew on Their “Feel-Good Film” About Bollywood Dreams, DIY Spirit and Friendship
Tired of superhero franchises but up for watching a group of larger-than-life misfits with no superpowers but big Bollywood dreams? If so, Superboys of Malegaon may be just for you.
The heartfelt Hindi-language comedy from Amazon MGM Studios, in collaboration with India’s Excel Entertainment and Tiger Baby, is directed by Reema Kagti (Made in Heaven) and is based on the life of Nasir Shaikh, an amateur filmmaker from the town of Malegaon in Western India who made a name for himself.
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His work with collaborators, creating their own versions of Indian hit movies but with minuscule budgets, was already the topic of Faiza Ahmad Khan’s 2008 documentary Supermen of Malegaon. Now they’re getting the fiction treatment.
“The residents of the town look to Bollywood cinema for a much-needed escape from daily drudgery. Nasir gets inspired to make a film for the people of Malegaon, by the people of Malegaon,” a synopsis of the new movie reads. “He bands together his ragtag group of friends to bring his vision to life, thereby bringing a fresh lease of life into the town. The film is a poignant yet uplifting take on both filmmaking and friendship — and what happens when those two worlds collide.”
Based on a script by Varun Grover (All India Rank), with Ritesh Sidhwani, Farhan Akhtar, Zoya Akhtar and Kagti as producers, the film stars Adarsh Gourav (The White Tiger), Shashank Arora (Brahman Naman), and Vineet Kumar Singh (The Brawler).
The two Akhtars are actually the children of Javed Akhtar, one of the writers of such Bollywood blockbusters as Sholay and Shaan, which Shaikh and his DIY crew in Malegaon imitated.
Superboys of Malegaon celebrates its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on Friday night, followed by its European premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on Oct. 10. A theatrical release is planned for early 2025, followed by the movie becoming available for streaming on Prime Video.
While promoting the film in Toronto, cast members and creatives took time for Zoom interviews with THR to share their experience and how the movie came about.
“I actually saw the documentary and fell in love with it, and time passed but it stays with you,” Zoya Akhtar tells THR about the origin story of Superboys. “And then I was at a film festival in Delhi, and across the room, I see Nasir, and he recognized me because I’m a filmmaker. I recognized him because I’d seen the documentary. We walked toward each other and introduced ourselves, and he just said: ‘I’m a huge fan of your father’s. I’ve ripped off all his films.’ And I just knew then and there, that there was a love story here.”
Shaikh, who has retired from actively directing, says he was thrilled when he heard about the Superboys project. “When I first heard about it and was invited to Bombay to meet with everyone, I was very, very happy,” he says via a translator. “I was so excited for this one to come to life.”
Similar to the characters on screen, the film team enjoyed the shoot, even though it wasn’t always easy. “The climax of the film was hard,” Kagti recalls. “It was hot as hell, and we were in there for about three, four days. So that was quite torturous. And you know shooting is like Murphy’s Law — anything that can go wrong does go wrong. So there were several hiccups, but I’m glad that they’re not that visible on screen.”
Gourav actually got to visit Malegaon before the team started filming. “I would just be shadowing Nasir,” Gourav tells THR. “And he took me to all these spots where he grew up while he wanted to be a filmmaker — the place where they would hang and discuss stories, a place where they would just chill, another place where they would screen. Nasir also took me to his video parlor where a majority of the first half of the film unfolds, and he was telling me all these stories about himself. I met all these people from his past who helped him make the films.”
One day, the actor and his crew had an idea while visiting Shaikh: What if he made a short film so they could witness his filmmaking first hand? “We were like: ‘Nasir, why don’t you just make a short film?’ And he basically made a parody of a very popular Indian film, and I produced it,” explains Gourav. “It was just so fascinating to be doing this and to be looking at the man himself. Every time he would call ‘action’ or ‘cut,’ I would just see this spark in his eyes. He doesn’t actively direct movies anymore. So for me to see that kind of passion for what he genuinely loves the most in his life was so beautiful. And I think that’s what inspired me.”
“He didn’t look at filmmaking as a very complicated thing,” director Kagti says of Nasir’s filmmaking style. “He was just like, ‘I want to make a film, and I’m going to go out and do it. I can achieve it.’ That’s very life-affirming. If anything, I hope this film we’ve put together inspires other people to do what they want to do and try and make the world a better place for themselves.”
In researching his role for Superboys, Singh says he tried to immerse himself in the culture of Malegaon. “I was just interacting with the people, talking with them and trying to understand how they approach life, why they started this journey,” he says.
Writer Grover says Superboys‘ focus on the human aspect of filmmaking is what attracted him to the project. “I used to love action films. I used to wait for films with posters of people holding guns and there’s [an explosion] in the background,” he tells THR. “And as I grew up, I started getting tired of action. Now that we are making more action films than we were 20 years ago, I’m super tired of them. So I really want to work on films and write films where no one is holding a gun and no one has even seen a gun in real life.”
Grover echoes that sentiment, adding that Superboys is “definitely a feel-good film, a film where we see the innocent side of the world. Of course, there are really dark sides of the world around us, and the world is kind of crumbling. I’m a very paranoid person. So I keep thinking maybe this is the last film I’m writing because the world is going to end very soon. So why not write something which is hopeful, which is life-affirming?! Because, as an old saying goes: ‘good art should comfort the discomforted and discomfort the comforted’.”
So how did Shaikh react when he saw the final cut of Superboys? “When we showed the finished film to Nasir, that was really special,” Grover recalls. “Because we are making a film about him and his friends and his passion, something he has dedicated his life to. And I was very nervous because it was only me and Nasir in the room. It was a dark room, and by the time the lights came up, I could hear him sobbing and being very emotional. And it was so special that we could do justice to his life and his works. And that was the biggest achievement already before the film was selected for any film festival.”
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