Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos told an audience of Indian filmmakers that they had “seen nothing” in terms of the streamer’s ambitions in the country.
Sarandos was in Mumbai for a fireside chat with renowned Indian director Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who is directing the riveting new series Heeramandi for Netflix.
Sarandos said India is the fastest growing Netflix market in the world and the company will continue to rely heavily on originals from the country.
Speaking at a separate Economic Times event on Friday, Sarandos said India will get a bigger share of Netflix’s $16.8 billion content budget. Netflix has produced 100 originals in India, 28 of them in the past year.
Heeramandi promises to be a major milestone in Netflix’s plans for India. The eight-part series began filming last June and will tell the stories of courtesans and the hidden cultural realities of Heeramandi, a colorful district of pre-independence India.
Sonakshi Sinha, Manisha Koirala and Aditi Rao Hydari are among the cast of a story centered around women. “These were court ladies who felt so much pain behind their veils, and yet they came to sing and dance at night,” said Bhansali. “They pleased these men, they entertained these men and then they went back to their dark world.”
Bhansali, the director behind the BAFTA nominated devdas And Gangubai Kathiawadiwhich caused a stir at the Oscars last year Heeramandi was his most ambitious project to date.
“By going digital, I made it even bigger. Heeramandi is the biggest project I’ve ever done, it’s so big,” said Bhansali. “I had to do something special… to make it happen [Sarandos] Pride.”
Sarandos compared Bhansali to Baz Luhrmann and praised his attention to detail and “investing a lot in small emotional movements”. He added, “It’s going to mesmerize audiences in India and for a lot of people, it will be their first time seeing something like this in the world.”
Sarandos added that it was “the honor of a lifetime” to work with Bhansali.
Source: Deadline
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