'I WAS SCARED TO DIRECT A WEB SERIES'

Director Habib Faisal talks about his debut web series, Home, which is based on the Campa Cola case

Aone-line narration by producer Ekta Kapoor was all it took to convince Habib Faisal to make his directorial debut on the web. However, the director says he was very apprehensive despite loving the concept of the show. “Ekta and the writer of the show thought of the story and basically shared with me one line: residents of a middle-class residential complex in Mumbai fight to save their homes when an order is passed to demolish the complex. This line in itself had enough to get me excited, because I would get to create an ensemble of cinematic characters. Also, I haven’t done anything that is set in Mumbai yet, and this gave me the opportunity to do that,” Habib says.

The Qaidi Band (2017) director says he was also drawn to the show’s unique narrative, which is different from what’s selling like hot cakes on the internet right now. He says, “We don’t have many narratives exploring the issue of housing. There was Khosla Ka Ghosla (2006) and some references in Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006), but otherwise, you get to see this issue from the point of view of gangsters or corrupt politicians. This time, we are looking at it from the receivers’ end; the person whose house is snatched away. Even if they were doing a stage play, I would have pleaded with them to let me do it, but when they said web series, I was scared, because I haven’t done one. This is also the first time I am directing something that I haven’t written. That was also an exciting challenge.”

Gangster dramas are the order of the day, but the genre doesn’t excite Habib too much. “All of us have individual tastes and I don’t get very excited by drugs, guns, sex and crime — on the web or feature space. The internet is just ODing like crazy on drugs and guns, so hats off to Ekta. This is very gutsy of her, because she is putting her money on the real problems of middleclass people — without sex and crime — in an atmosphere where the whole assumption of success on the web equals drugs, guns, blood, nudity and some kind of ‘bold and loud anti-establishment treatment’. But it has its own violence, which is of agitation and the regular Indian citizen feeling impotent when it comes to fighting against the system. I hope her gamble pays off,” the director says.

All of us have individual tastes and I don’t get very excited by drugs, guns, sex and crime — on the web or feature space. The internet is just O Ding like crazy on drugs and guns, so hats off to Ekta. This is very gutsy of her HABIB FAISAL, ACTOR