They first met in 2012 at a movie-making contest organised by indie film channel Humara Movie, where Asmit Pathare’s entry Jai Janardhan won. Shorts like The Doubty Dhoble: You Not Drink (2012) — sparked by the hockey stick-wielding Bombay cop Vasant Dhoble’s moral policing of bars and public spaces — and Shankar aur Bhagwaan (2013) were followed by a period of immersion in theatre. Winning the META Best Light Design award for his work on Yuki Ellias’ The Elephant in the Room led to many such offers, until the pandemic struck.
On the other side of the lockdown, Pathare emerged with two feature film scripts, only to find no takers: the industry had shifted completely to web series. Meanwhile, when writer Annie Zaidi was ready with a 10-page script for Two-Way Street , Pathare was the director she wanted to entrust it to. It qualified for this year’s Academy Awards and opened the path to an anthology project, still in the making.
Zaidi, herself an award-winning writer across genres and mediums, engages with Pathare on what makes him persist in following the compulsions of heart and mind over market. Did you always want to make films? I am a product of that generation when the software sector was booming. ‘India Shining’ was happening.
I worked in software engineering, but I was trying to find a way out. I joined a theatre group. It was a way to empty yourself, you worked all day, and at night, jo bhi bhadas nikalni thhi , you let it out.
Theatre became my first .