Nasir Shaikh, the Malegaon filmmaker known for low-budget Bollywood parodies made with friends chipping in as actors and crew, is the subject of Reema Kagti’s Superboys of Malegaon. The Hindi film about filmmaking, friendship and determination stars Adarsh Gourav, Vineet Kumar Singh, Shashank Arora and Anuj Singh Duhan.
Gourav plays Shaikh who used creative storytelling and satire to make movies such as Malegaon Ke Sholay, Malegaon Ke Shaan and Superman of Malegaon. The movie mania that led to the phenomenon called “Mollywood” was previously explored by Faiza Ahmed Khan in her documentary Supermen of Malegaon (2008). Khan’s film has been given a shout-out in the end credits of Superboys of Malegaon.
Kagti’s fictional project, written by Varun Grover, was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2024 and will be released on February 28 in cinemas. In an interview, Kagti (Talaash, Dahaad) talks about how her new movie pays tribute to Nasir Shaikh as well as the passion of filmmakers everywhere.
What attracted you to Mollywood and specifically Nasir Shaikh?
Nasir Shaikh is an inspirational character. When we started researching the story, I found similarities between him and me.
I grew up in a small town. I was crazy about films, just like him. We are from the same generation. We share a love for Mr Bachchan and Bruce Lee. I’m also a product of piracy, growing up in Assam back then.
I came to Mumbai from Assam, whereas Nasir stayed in Malegaon, a small industrial town mostly filled with looms and loom workers who were cinema-crazy. There were two single screens and about 14-15 video parlours.
Nasir made his first film [Malegaon Ke Sholay] without any agenda. It did so well that it was distributed in video parlours in Malegaon. This led to a parallel video film industry. Nasir brought the big city to a small town. He made his first film purely out of love for cinema. That really spoke to me and reconnected me to why I became a filmmaker at all.
There are other parallels too. Whether you’re in Mumbai or Malegaon, you’re always hustling. Filmmaking, especially for the director, is all about inspiring people to do their best, no matter the resources. You can be in a small town, but your passion can still shine through. And even if you have the biggest budget, you have to do jugaad at some level or the other.
You’re dependent on your cast and crew, and you have to inspire them. And there is a little bit of manipulation in that. A filmmaker can be obsessed and have blinders on about what he or she is doing.
Also read:
How Malegaon’s film superheroes flew low and reached great heights
There is ample documentation on Mollywood, including Faiza Ahmad Khan’s Supermen of Malegaon. Is this how you got acquainted with Nasir’s story?
I think it all started around 2012 when Zoya [Akhtar] and Farhan [Akhtar] met Nasir at a film festival. Zoya introduced herself as Javed Akhtar’s daughter and Nasir said, I’ve ripped off his films. Being a storyteller, Zoya started digging into his past.
The first time I heard about it was from Zoya. She told me to watch the documentary. She also told me that there was so much more to Nasir’s story that it could be a full-on feature. He also wanted to give his life rights.
That was in 2012. It’s taken us this long. I believe several people approached him, but Nasir stuck to wanting Zoya to do it. The way he tells it is that after meeting Zoya, he saw Luck By Chance [Akhtar’s debut feature from 2009] and realised that she was the best person. When he found out that I was going to direct the film, he watched Talaash many times just to see if I could do a good job. I feel really lucky and grateful that Nasir trusted us with his life rights.
Once Zoya, Varun and I had a clear idea about the themes that we were exploring, we decided to start on a clean slate. Varun went to Malegaon. Luckily for us, Nasir is one of the greatest archivists of his own life. If his crew went on a picnic after they wrapped a film, there were two to three hours of the picnic footage.
We’re going for a much larger story than the canvas of the documentary. Because we’re such fans of the documentary, we’ve even given it a shout-out.
Mollywood is a hyperlocal subculture. How do you make a film about this scene while ensuring that it isn’t disrespectful or presented from a superior position?
I would think that’s because of my relationship with Nasir. I have a lot of respect for him. When we went to Malegaon, Nasir really welcomed us. We spent so much time researching, talking to him, speaking to all the people, his friends, his family.
Everybody is asking me, what do you want from the release? Do you want critical acclaim? Box office? For me, the big one was Nasir watching the film. He was in tears at the end. He said, you’ve done justice not only to me but also to my friends who are not here today, and to Malegaon. This was the biggest compliment for me.
The story has so many layers. There’s a very strong friendship story. There’s a very strong underdog story that will inspire anybody who has a dream. There’s a very strong sense of community and the importance of representing a community in art.
Varun Grover has asked questions like, what is art and who creates art, but he’s done it with the slightest touch. That’s why we are going for a theatrical release, because when an idea is so specific, it also becomes universal. This is a film that celebrates the magic of cinema, and we have shot it with a lot of love.
Did you meet the surviving cast and crew of Superman of Malegaon?
We on-boarded the real characters. But every character in the film may not be a real person. We have made composites of some characters. You do need to fictionalise some stuff.
Nasir also introduced us to his original cast in Malegaon, so we got a lot of the background from there. A guy who played the bad guy in Superman of Malegaon is playing the same role in Superboys of Malegaon. So we had fun with it.
We’ve not fabricated anything in the script, it’s come from research. The documentary Supermen of Malegaon is out there, and it’s wonderful. It was quite a task to go beyond that to make a feature film.
Superboys of Malegaon is neither a biopic nor a documentary. We tried to stay true to the essence of the story, to evoke and recreate the magic they created while acknowledging that the film may not be historically accurate in every event.
What kind of actors were you looking to cast?
The casting was a mix of familiarity and finding the right spirit. I had worked with Vineet in Gold, Shashank in Made in Heaven. Adarsh acted in Kho Gaye Hum Kahaan [which Kagti co-wrote]. We knew their calibre and what they brought to the table.
Which part was the toughest to cast?
Probably the part played by Manjiri Pupala because she had to be sassy. She is different from the others. She’s already a dancer and an actress, yet she still completely belongs in that small town milieu.
