On Thursday evening, filmmaker Sudhir Mishra posted on Twitter a glimpse of the first day of shoot of his new film for Netflix, an official adaptation of Manu Joseph’s novel, Serious Men. Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui plays the central character, a Dalit man who cooks up a lie about his 10-year-old son, only to find that it has spiralled out of control. Serious Men had won the first The Hindu Literary Prize, and was also been nominated for Man Asian Literary Prize.
The novel is a satire that trains the spotlight on society, class, caste and science. It was adapted for the stage by Nikhila Kesavan in 2013. She directed the play, presented by the well-known theatre group The Madras Players.
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Serious Men is the first Netflix venture of Sudhir Mishra, a two-time National Award-winning filmmaker and the screenwriter of films such as Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro. His last feature film was Daas Dev, loosely based on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s 1917 Bengali novel, Devdas. The director is known for his films such as Is Raat Ki Subah Nahi and Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi.
Serious Men is the second Netflix project of Nawazuddin Siddiqui after the series, Sacred Games which has bagged a Emmy nomination for Best Drama.
The project was officially announced in April 2019. “The reader and the viewer converge on Netflix, and now we can tell quality stories the way they were meant to be told. So, it seems natural that this thrilling tale of wiles, wits, danger and redemption would find a home and an audience on this platform,” said Mishra in a press statement dated April 15.
Serious Men is one of the 10 original films Netflix announced in April, including Class of ‘83, produced by Shah Rukh Khan’s production company, and Ghost Stories, an anthology directed by Zoya Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap, Karan Johar and Dibakar Banerjee, the same quartet that made the much-liked Lust Stories for Netflix.
A new film begins . Am I directing the children or are they instinctively pointing me towards new directions #seriousmen @manujosephsan @bhaveshmandalia @NetflixIndia pic.twitter.com/JSR5jThkLo
— Sudhir Mishra (@IAmSudhirMishra) September 18, 2019