News of Somalian robbers often remains in the headlines. Now filmmaker Hansal Mehta’s son Jai Mehta has made the web series Lootere on the story of these robbers from the African country Somalia. Hansal himself is also associated with this show as a creator. The show, premiering on Disney Plus Hotstar on March 22, stars Rajat Kapoor, Vivek Gomber, Amrita Khanwilkar, and Deepak Tijori in important roles.
Hansal says, “The show producer and creator Shailesh Singh had developed this story in collaboration with Vishal Kapoor and Suparn Verma. After about a year and a half, he gave me this script to read. (laughs) He told me that you have no other option. This show will have to be done. Then I told the same thing to Jai that if you want to do it then do it, but you have no other option, you will have to do it.
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Greed to become a good director
There is a dialogue in the show that greed is a big bitch. As a filmmaker, Hansal says on greed, “Greed is both good and bad. Good greed is that in which you want to do good work, greed to tell a good story, greed to play a good character, greed to be a good director. Bad greed is wanting what isn’t yours. You want to snatch that thing from someone else.
If we look at things like greed and hatred from a positive perspective, they contribute significantly to human progress. Whereas if greed is bad, it can also bring you down. Simran (2017) was the film that I got after a lot of greed.
Big screen-like things will be seen in the web series
Hansal says, “In this show, for the first time, we have made some things larger than life for the small screen which are shown on the big screen. Till now we have mostly been making shows based on true events or various topics of society. In this show too, there is a mirror to show the society, but that mirror is very big.
Never did the location recce
Hansal, who is active in producing many films and shows, revealed something unique about his filmmaking process. While usually filmmakers go to see locations for their films, Hansal avoids it. He says, “Till date, I have never gone on location recce (to search for the correct location). My team sends me some videos and pictures of the location and I make decisions based on that.
Shooting in South Africa
Hansal said, “In view of the Corona epidemic and security reasons, the team of the show could not go to Somalia for the shooting of this show. However, to give the audience a closer experience of reality, the team shot in South Africa about three years ago.
The team spent about six and a half months in South Africa for this show. Out of which the shooting continued for about 95-97 days. A team of about 20 people had gone from India for the shooting. The remaining 20–21 South African crew were retained. Four Somali artists worked in the show, with the rest being of African origin.
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