After a 27-year hiatus from television, veteran Indian director Anubhav Sinha is bringing his first web series through Netflix titled 'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack'.
The six-episode thriller, based on the 1999 hijacking of an Air India flight, marks Sinha's first return to long-form storytelling since his early days in television, which included DD Metro's “Sea Hawks”.
Based on the book “Flight into Fear” by Captain Devi Sharan and Sringjoy Chaudhary, the series examines the crisis from multiple angles. It offers a multi-faceted view of the incident, highlighting the tense negotiations in the Delhi war room, the high-stakes diplomacy in Taliban-controlled Kandahar, and the harrowing ordeal faced by the passengers and crew on board the hijacked plane.
Sinha, known for his films on social issues such as “Article 15” and “Thappad,” initially resisted the idea of producing a series. “I was doing films, so I wasn’t interested,” he says. diverseHowever, the constant pitch from Netflix India's head of content Monica Shergill and extensive research for the project changed his mind.
The series is written by Sinha and Trishant Srivastava (“Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga”), and directed by Sinha. The story is written by Adrian Levy and Srivastava. It is produced by Matchbox Shots and Benaras Mediaworks, with Sarita Patel and Sanjay Routray as producers.
“When I went to college, I thought I knew everything about it,” Sinha says. “But when the research started, and Adrian joined us, it started opening up, not just in India, but in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Washington, everywhere. Then I realized I didn’t know anything about it. That became the motivation to go deeper and deeper into the research.”
The shift from feature films to series presented both challenges and opportunities for Sinha. “You’re constantly aware that this is going to be seen on laptops, tablets and mobile phones,” he explains, noting potential limitations in visual detail. However, he found freedom in the flexibility of the format: “We didn’t have a fixed number of episodes when we were writing. So you could take as much time as you needed for the story.”
Sinha and his team have approached the visual style of the series with meticulous planning. “Ewan [Mulligan, the cinematographer alongside Ravi Kiran Ayyagari] “He asked me a very important question. He said, ‘Anubhav, are we reenacting what happened?’ I said, ‘No, the event is happening again. We will send our cameras and crew there at the right time.’” This decision led to a contemporary style of filming being applied to historical events.
The visual palette of the series evolves as the story progresses across multiple locations. “We decided that each location would be different from the last,” Sinha explains. From the bright, cloudy Kathmandu to the misty Amritsar and golden shadows of Dubai, each location has a distinct look designed to convey the emotional and physical distance of the journey.
Filming at an airport in Jordan was a unique challenge because of its proximity to the Israeli border. “There were sometimes sudden instructions that you can’t shoot in this direction now, or you can’t shoot for two hours,” Sinha recalls. “For those two hours, we didn’t know why, because it was a very secure area.”
The series features an ensemble cast that includes Vijay Varma, Kanwaljit Singh and Arvind Swami. Sinha credits casting director Mukesh Chhabra with helping him assemble the ensemble. “By the time we got to Kumud Mishra, Manoj Pahwa and Aditya Srivastava, we thought we were done,” says Sinha. “But then there were two other characters that came into being, and then they became what they are.” Veterans Pankaj Kapur and Naseeruddin Shah have been cast to play the heads of the Indian government’s crisis management group.
Pankaj Kapur and Naseeruddin Shah in 'IC814: The Kandahar Kidnapping'
Netflix
Although IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack is a standalone story, Sinha remains open to future streaming projects with Netflix. However, his immediate focus is to return to feature films. “I am itching to make films and I am currently finalizing a few scripts. I want to make some bigger films than the ones I have been doing recently. However, I want films with sound, but bigger films that are more box office driven,” he says.
Sinha’s career has spanned genres, from romantic comedies to blockbuster action films like “Ra.One” (2011) starring Shah Rukh Khan. Now, he’s looking to combine his recent socially conscious works, which include “Bheed” (2023), “Anek” (2022), “Article 15” (2019) and “Mulk” (2018), with bigger productions. “I was dying to do music, I was dying to do action, I was dying to do visual effects,” he says.
As “IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack” prepares to hit Netflix on August 29, Sinha insists that he has not changed his approach to international audiences. “I truly believe that the more authentic and local a film is, the more appealing it is, because that’s a taste that audiences have never had before. I have tried to be as true to the material as possible,” he says.
