Director Anubhav Sinha, who made his streaming debut recently with IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, has spoken about the genesis of the series and why he was less interested in dramatizing the incident and more about the people behind the scenes.
The show is based is based on the 1999 hijack of Indian Airlines Flight 814, which was taken over by militants for seven days as soon as it took off from Kathmandu, Nepal. It was on its way to Delhi but on the behest of the militants, was re-routed to several locations, including Amritsar, Lahore, Dubai, and was finally landed in Afghanistan’s Kandahar, which was under Taliban rule.
“What really drew me in was how everyone—both on the inside and outside—reacted and managed the crisis,” said Anubhav. "I was particularly interested in understanding what happened once the news broke—how the authorities in different countries scrambled to respond, and what strategies were put in place to figure out why the hijack happened in the first place. It’s fascinating to think about what might’ve been going on in Delhi, in Lahore, in Afghanistan, all at the same time.”
The series released on Netflix on August 29. It has an impressive ensemble of Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Vijay Varma, Manoj Pahwa and Patralekhaa among others.
Our review of the series read: “With the show, Anubhav gets a breather from making political films. This time, there is no angry undercurrent in the story that is coming out through long monologues nor is there a community that needs to be saved. Although there is some serious world politics at play in the entire incident, Anubhav presents it each time through a simplistic narration. There is also an undercooked effort to look at the worldview of the hijackers that comes across only through some one-liners in the dialogues.”
