Making its premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Superboys of Malegaon is an inspiring film based on the life of Nasir Shaikh. It’s a film that shows that with a dream, and the love of movies, a community can come together to make their own filmmaking magic.
“I think that being from a small town myself, I could really connect to this community coming together,” director Reema Kagti told Yahoo Canada about what made her excited about telling Shaikh’s story. “There’s the obvious love for film that Nasir has, that I have.”
“When I started interacting with Nasir, I realized there are certain things that make a director, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re functioning out of the Mumbai film industry or making home movies in Malegaon.”
In 1997, despite not have a budget or significant resources, Nasir, played by Adarsh Gourav, is certain that filmmaking is on the horizon for him, with his love of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin films. He starts by splicing together moments from different movies on tapes, but it all comes to an end when he gets busted for piracy.
That leaves Nasir to film his own movie, borrowing some basic gear, enlisting his friend Farogh (Vineet Kumar Singh) to write the script, and with the help of other friends, it’s a success.
As Nasir and Farogh continue making films, frustrations start to run high, and the Mumbai movie scene maybe isn’t exactly what they expected. But a mutual friend Shafique (Shashank Arora) brings Nasir and Farogh back together.
“The idea was just to represent the embodiment of who Nasir is,” Gourav said about playing Nasir. “I think he’s a perfect blend of charm and wit and passion.”
“I wasn’t trying to mimic him in any way. I just wanted to kind of understand what he stands for, what his inner politics is, and what is his relationship with his family has been like, what his relationship with his friends has has been like. I just feel like I’m incredibly lucky that I got to follow Nasir and shadow him.”
In terms of really having the authenticity of the film, writer Varun Grover highlighted that Shaikh is an “obsessive archivist” of his own life.
“He has lots of photographs, lots of newspaper cuttings, his first film’s actual poster,” Grover said,
“In fact, every film he has played in the video parlour, he has a photo of the screening day, or a poster of the film they made to put outside theatre. So he has documented even those things. So it was really lucky for us that we had a guy like Nasir around us to supplement us with material, which was really helpful in making the film.”
‘Storytelling is a survival instinct’
But at the core of Superboys of Malegaon is this really brilliant evaluation of how much movies can inspire people, and what a significant impact they have on our lives, told through an incredibly heartfelt story.
“Storytelling is a survival instinct,” Shashank Arora said. “It’s something that’s so close to us and I’ve always loved it.”
“It’s always shown me the mirror. It showed me more about myself. I’ve learned about life through stories. I’ve learned about love through stories and people through stories. That is the thematic of our film as well.”
“I love movies about movies and this was particularly special because it’s about a director,” producer Zoya Akhtar highlighted. “It was about somebody who had very little going for him, very little resources, he just had a love for film and the gumption to inspire people around him, and go out there and make stories about his own people and represent them on screen.”
“You just realized as a filmmaker that your films are going to live longer than you, and that is your legacy.”
Gourav added that Superboys of Malegaon is a “perfect” film because it goes through all the different emotions that people can feel watching films.
“It makes you cry, it makes you happy, it makes you celebrate life as it is. And I think this film is truly a gift for everybody who’s involved in making it, and also everybody who will be watching it,” Gourav said.