After a 27-year hiatus from television, veteran Indian filmmaker Anubhav Sinha is making his streaming series debut with Netflix‘s “IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack.”
The six-episode thriller, based on the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight, marks Sinha’s first return to long-form storytelling since his early days in television, which includes DD Metro series “Sea Hawks.”
The drama, adapted from the book “Flight Into Fear” by Captain Devi Sharan and Srinjoy Chowdhury, explores the crisis from multiple angles. It offers a multifaceted look at the incident, showcasing the tense negotiations in Delhi’s War Room, the high-stakes diplomacy at Taliban-controlled Kandahar, and the terrifying ordeal faced by passengers and crew aboard the hijacked aircraft.
Sinha, known for socially conscious films like “Article 15” and “Thappad,” initially resisted the idea of making a series. “I was doing films, so I wasn’t interested,” he tells Variety. However, a persistent pitch from Netflix India content head Monika Shergill and the project’s extensive research changed his mind.
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The series is created by Sinha and Trishant Srivastava (“Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga”), with Sinha directing. The story is by Adrian Levy and Srivastava. It is produced by Matchbox Shots and Benaras Mediaworks, with Sarita Patil and Sanjay Routray as producers.
“When I got in, I thought I knew everything about it,” Sinha says. “But when the research started, and we had Adrian on board, it started opening up, not only within India but in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Washington and everywhere. Then I realized that I didn’t know anything about it. That became the driving force to dive in deeper and deeper.”
The transition from feature films to a series presented both challenges and opportunities for Sinha. “You’re constantly aware that this will be largely seen on laptops and tablets and mobile phones,” he explains, noting the potential limitations in visual detail. However, he found freedom in the format’s flexibility: “We did not have any number of episodes fixed when we were writing. So you can take as much time as the story needs.”
Sinha and his team approached the series’ visual style with meticulous planning. “Ewan [Mulligan, the cinematographer alongside Ravi Kiran Ayyagari] asked me a very important question. He said, ‘Anubhav, are we recreating what happened?’ I said, ‘No, the event is happening again. We are sending our cameras and crew back there in time.'” This decision led to a contemporary shooting style applied to period events.
The series’ visual palette evolves as the story progresses across multiple locations. “We decided that every location will be different from the previous one,” Sinha explains. From the bright, overcast Kathmandu to the foggy Amritsar and the golden hues of Dubai, each setting has a distinct look designed to convey the journey’s emotional and physical distance.
Filming at an airport in Jordan presented unique challenges due to its proximity to the Israeli border. “There were some surprise instructions at times that you cannot shoot in this direction right now, or you can’t shoot for two hours,” Sinha recalls. “For those two hours, we’d not know why, because it was a very high-security area.”
The series boasts an ensemble cast including Vijay Varma, Kanwaljeet Singh and Arvind Swami. Sinha credits casting director Mukesh Chhabra for helping assemble the group. “By the time we reached Kumud Mishra and Manoj Pahwa and Aditya Srivastava, we thought we were done,” Sinha says. “But then there were two more characters that were just bubbling, and then they became what they became.” Veterans Pankaj Kapoor and Naseeruddin Shah were cast as the chiefs of the Indian government’s crisis management group.
While “IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack” is a self-contained story, Sinha remains open to future streaming projects with Netflix. However, his immediate focus is returning to feature films. “I’m itching to do films and I’m finalizing some scripts,” he says. “I want to do some bigger films than what I’ve been doing of late. Still, films with a voice, but larger films that lean more heavily on the box office.”
Sinha’s career has spanned various genres, from romantic comedies to action blockbusters like “Ra.One” (2011) starring Shah Rukh Khan. Now, he’s looking to combine his recent socially conscious work, which include “Bheed” (2023), “Anek” (2022), “Article 15” (2019) and “Mulk” (2018), with larger-scale productions. “I’ve been itching to do music, I’ve been itching to do action, I’ve been itching to do visual effects,” he says.
As “IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack” prepares for its global release on Netflix on Aug. 29, Sinha maintains that he didn’t alter his approach for an international audience. “I truly believe the more authentic, more local you make it, the more appealing it becomes, because that’s a taste that they have never had,” he says. “I was trying to be as true to the material as possible.”
