HYDERABAD : For Hansal Mehta, working on the web series Lootere was special. This was the first time the acclaimed director took a backseat (specifically as a showrunner) for a series helmed entirely by his son Jai Mehta. However, this wasn’t their first collaboration. Jai has previously worked as an assistant director for his father’s films, including Aligarh (2015), Citylights (2014) and Shahid (2012). Further, Jai co-directed some episodes of Scam 1992 (2020) with Hansal. So, when Shaailesh Singh, the creator of Lootere, called Hansal to work on the show, he was quick to recommend Jai, since he was busy working on Scoop (2023) at the time. “When I finally came on board, Lootere was already written by Vishal Kapoor and Suparn Verma,” he says. “Shaailesh was working with Vasan Bala who was going to direct it earlier. But then, Vasan got committed to Monica, O My Darling (2022), Scam 1992 released and I was working on Scoop. So, Shaailesh called me and said I have to do this project. I told him that the only way possible for this to happen is if Jai directs it.”Hansal was fascinated with all the different perspectives that were part of the show and how the hijacked ship at the centre of it became a representation of the world we inhabit. “There are the pirates, the crew and a shrewd businessman at one side,” the filmmaker adds. “You have the privileged, you have the middle class and there are these people who are impoverished and forced into piracy due to the conditions in their country. It’s like having the entire socio-economic strata trapped together in one place. Beyond being a thriller, if you look at it deeper, it is about the world that we live in.”
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