'Tees' very different to web series 'Tandav' in question: Dibaker Banerjee
Filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee has been forced to shop around his unreleased film ‘Tees’ to potential buyers after ‘Netflix’ refused to give it a platform. The director surmised that the streamer got cold feet about the completed movie due to the political climate in the country.
In recent weeks, there have been multiple reports of prominent streaming platforms displaying caution with certain titles. The second season of Prime Video’s ‘Paatal Lok’ and Anurag Kashyap’s ambitious ‘Netflix’ adaptation of ‘Maximum City’ both hit roadblocks, as did the planned third season of ‘Sacred Games’. ‘Tees’ was announced in 2019 and described as ‘the story of an Indian family interwoven with the personal, ideological and sexual history of India.’ The cast includes Naseeruddin Shah, Kalki Koechlin, Manisha Koirala, Divya Dutta, Huma Qureshi, Zoya Husain, Shashank Arora and Neeraj Kabi. Banerjee shot the film in 2020 and delivered it to ‘Netflix’ last year. After months of non-committal communication, the streamer informed him that it would not be moving forward with the release.
In an interview with ‘Deadline’, Banerjee said that ‘Tees’ (previously titled ‘Freedom’) isn’t even that political and that he is unable to screen it at festivals because ‘Netflix’ barred him from doing so, but the streamer has allowed him to distribute links of the film to potential buyers.
“ ‘Netflix’ has never given me any other reason except they don’t know if this is the right time to release the film. Given what happened with ‘Tandav’, the only conclusion to reach is that ‘Netflix’ is reluctant to release the film out of fear of being similarly targeted. But the film I have made is very different to the web series in question,” Banerjee told ‘Deadline’.
He added, “It’s not about any incendiary incidents. It’s about the daily life of an average middle-class urban family over three generations. But now my story is becoming eerily similar to one of the protagonists in the film. I also believe this is my best film to date.”
