Samit Kakkad is ready to bring Narco Queen Shashikala Patankar’s story on screen

By Jyothi Venkatesh

There was an announcement recently about a web series based on the life of narco queen Shashikala Patankar. While the web series will be produced by Sanjay Gupta’s White Feather films, it will be directed by Samit Kakkad & Sanjay Gupta. Interestingly Kakkad is known to have made films that show the underbelly of Mumbai.

In his journey of about two decades in the film business, filmmaker Samit Kakkad went from being a steady hand behind-the-scenes to a director. His films like Ascharyachakit, Half-Ticket, Aayna Ka Baayna and shows like Indori Ishq and the under-production Dharavi Bank are strung together by a common factor – his love for Mumbai’s underbelly. Samit is also directing the biopic on controversial bar-dancer Sweety.

Bring up his love for the underbelly of the city of Mumbai, Kakkad says, “It’s strange but I was drawn into subjects like these, subconsciously, from the time I was a teenager. I wasn’t even in college then. The pimps, the dancers, the ganglords, the lukkhas, the panwalas…you name the player in the game – each one had a story which could enrich your experiences. The underbelly of this city has always attracted me. It’s a goldmine of stories, even now. You just have to keep your ear to the ground. I had been following bar dancers, gang leaders and all such entities for years. And when I started making content of my own, it was almost natural for my experiences to tip-toe their way in.”

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Filmmakers, over decades, have been fascinated by different elements that make Mumbai the city it is, including its underbelly. Elaborating on why he has found the city’s underbelly the most fascinating part, Samit says, “The characters you will encounter here will change your thinking forever. I have been intrigued by everything that happens in the dark wells of this city that looks so bright on the surface. All the characters, settings and depictions in my content stem from real experiences. Both Topaz, based on Sweety’s life and the story based on Shashikala Patankar’s life are fascinating and will showcase facets of the city that they haven’t seen before.