“Tandoor will be a game-changer”, says director Nivedita Basu!
Debutant director Nivedita Basu’s Tandoor is creating news everywhere The series’s first poster was released recently. Speaking of which Nivedita says,” I think the first look with Tanuj Virwani is amazing and the kind of response we got is spectacular. Tanuj is a huge OTT star. Vayu Raghavan of Inside Edge was his first Amazon show and it was a huge success. I’m so grateful that Tanuj decided to become a part of our show. I was also very happy to see the huge impact Rashmi Desai had. Both the actors are very talented so getting them together in my debut series is a bonus.”
Speaking about their casting in the series Nivedita adds,”Tanuj is an old friend of mine. We have been discussing this story for a long time. He was in Dubai, and we used to discuss over phone calls. He found a window of few free days and I just decided to start my shoot. This was at the peak of pandemic during August September. Vibhu Agarwal the CEO of Ullu was very keen on getting Rashmi in Tandoor. I was planning to have her for another project but then she was destined to be in Tandoor. Both of them have agreed because of my request. Vibhuji showing his trust in me is also a great thing.” Interestingly Tandoor will come in five languages. Speaking about that Basu says,”Ullu has been seen in a different way and they want to change their image now. I am glad that Vibhuji has asked me to be part of Tandoor as a producer and director. The idea of five languages is superb and the kind of content Vibhuji has is very dynamic.”
Tandoor is based on true events. But like any fiction story, it has been dramatised appropriately. “OTT is booming and the audience is interested in watching true incidents. Every maker has their own way of making and every actor has their own style. What you’ll see here you is the collective effort of the whole team.”
Nivedita’s own career has been interesting. She started her journey back in 2000 as a director in channel V. She adds, ”I actually studied direction but then I started working in Balaji where I was creating content and moved towards production. This I did for 20 years. And finally, when I got this opportunity and met Vibhuji, he gave me this content and I realised this is the time to go back to the direction again.”
On her inspiration, Nivedita says,” Being a Bengali, Satyajit Ray is someone whom I have always looked upto. In the West I have always loved Ben Afleck, Clint Eastwood. And I have not even reached 10% of any of these filmmakers. It’s a long way to go but the good thing about me is that I never fail to learn. I always feel like my associates are teaching me so much. I watch a lot of content. Lastly, I am so glad that we have made Tandoor and it’s like all women producer team – there’s Chitra Vakil Sharma who is a hands-on producer. She did a fabulous job and now I am gradually doing 3-4 projects with her. Then we have Chandni who invested in the project, she believed in us.”
Tandoor was supposed to be shot in Delhi but due to Pandemic the plan changed and it was shot in Mumbai. Nivedita is happy that not a single case of covid happened in the unit and it was all nicely done keeping the covid protocols in mind