How Dibakar overcame Debacles

All’s well that ends well, as far as the filmmaker is concerned

Dibakar Banerjee has been lauded for most of his works — from Khosla Ka Ghosla to Love Sex Aur Dhokha (LSD), Oye Lucky Lucky Oye (OLLO) and Sandeep aur Pinky Faraar (SPF). But he has been faced with erratic luck regarding the releases. Talking of SPF turning out to be one of the best OTT films in recent times, Dibakar says, “Everything has been uncontrollable. The film got a release date but it had to be changed, and when it got one again, we were in the middle of the pandemic. But it was delightful to know that people loved the film on the OTT.” In a lighter vein, Dibakar says with a chuckle, “Varun Grover (writer) came up with the line that our film must be the only one that got Covid twice and was saved and now has become a plasma.”

His earlier films like Khosla Ka Ghosla, LSD and OLLO were sleeper hits and have a cult status attached to them. But they too had major release issues.

Khosla Ka Ghosla took a few years to be released after UTV acquired the film. But, “I meet people who have seen the film around 20 times at least now,” smiles Dibakar. Just when Oye Lucky Lucky Oye was released, the Mumbai bombings took place.

“The film did well on TV and DVDs. It did well in the theatres too, but could have done a lot better,” says Dibakar. “Today a lot of people talk about it. People did appreciate it when it finally came out and in fact when we were doing Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar people even wondered if this was Part 2 of OLLO,” Dibakar says about his Abhay Deol venture.