Netflix India has rolled out its 2021 programming slate, and it’s a catalogue of about 40 titles, across films, series, documentaries and reality shows. Over a Zoom call, we chatted with Srishti Behl Arya, director, international original films, Netflix, to know more. Yes, we are spoilt for choice!

What can you tell us about the Netflix slate for 2021?

We are coming out with a whole bunch of stuff. We have 40 pieces of content that we are going to bring out to you, and this will be across films, series... series that are both scripted and unscripted, documentaries.... Basically, whatever it is that you want, we are just trying to make sure that you find it right here on Netflix. It’s a big celebration for us. We are planning to have at least two-three titles coming out every month. We want to make sure that whatever mood you are in when you come home, you find the best possible match for that on Netflix.

So what are the big titles that we are looking at?

We just released The Girl on the Train. Coming up next (on March 8) is Bombay Begums, which is a big show for us. Alankrita (Shrivastava, the creator of Bombay Begums) is such an insightful director, she really picks up on the little-little things. Speaking of little things, we will have the new season of Little Things (starring Dhruv Sehgal and Mithila Palkar) this year. We have a new show called Feels Like Ishq. Then we have Ram Madhvani’s Dhamaka, starring Kartik Aaryan. We also have a full-on thriller called Penthouse directed by Abbas-Mustan. There’s Pagglait (with Sanya Malhotra) that will be out soon. It looks at how a certain tragedy can bring about so much change in a person’s life, but told with a lot of warmth and humour.

In the family space, we have Sardar Ka Grandson, with Arjun Kapoor and Neenaji (Gupta) who was in a totally different role in Masaba Masaba last year (Sardar Ka Grandson also stars Rakul Preet Singh). Then there is Mai, which has Sakshi Tanwar (produced by Anushka Sharma and also starring Raima Sen). It’s about what women are capable of when pushed against the wall.

Then there is Chaitanya Tamhane’s much-feted film The Disciple, which is in Marathi. There is the Tamil anthology Navarasa that we are doing with Mani sir (Mani Ratnam). It has some of the biggest film-makers in Tamil Nadu coming together with some of the biggest stars to tell stories about the nine rasas of life. We have Jagame Thandhiram, with Dhanush. There is a show called Yeh Kaali Kaali Aankhein (with Tahir Raj Bhasin and Shweta Tripathi), which has dark humour. It’s a heartland drama. Raveena Tandon is coming on to our service with a suspense thriller called Aranyak (also starring Parambrata Chattopadhyay). (R.) Madhavan and Surveen Chawla will be in this comedy called Decoupled....

That’s quite a diverse mix...

We are very committed to diversity. We don’t believe that everybody will come in wanting one thing at the same time, or all things at the same time. Sometimes, you are in the mood to just kick back and feel tickled and for that we have Meenakshi Sundareshwar, which has Abhimanyu Dassani and Sanya Malhotra coming together in a beautiful rom com about the beginnings of a marriage. If you want something that’s edgy and will really shock you, then we have Ajeeb Daastaans, which is an anthology that I think would be fair to be called ‘provocative’. Then we have Haseen Dillruba with Taapsee Pannu and Vikrant Massey. There is a show with Kapil Sharma as well. It’s a whole lot of variety. Whatever it is that you want, we have it... ab menu mein sab new!

Sourced by the correspondent

Over the last year, when the world was dependent on streaming platforms to tide us through the lockdown, what kind of content did well for Netflix?

Being at home, people had, of course, consumed a lot more content. It’s been a privilege for us to provide some sort of distraction through entertainment. Very diverse content has been consumed over the last one year. We saw a lot of love for Ludo, which was the most appreciated comedy film on our platform. In the drama space, Gunjan Saxena was much loved. And then, of course, was our guilty pleasure, which is Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives. Raat Akeli Hai was a whodunit that did very well, despite its lengthy running time. Serious Men did well. Class of ’83 was our first cop film. Jamtara also did well.

People have also been watching content in different languages — Korean, Japanese, Spanish, and of, course, classics like The Crown. The Queen’s Gambit was a huge one for us. I enjoyed Emily in Paris also, I breezed through the whole thing (laughs). I have a teenaged son and I watched Mismatched with him. He was like, ‘Okay mom, let’s see how you all are representing us,’ and he was quite pleased with it. I think using Prateek Kuhad’s music on the show really worked.

The best thing is that we aren’t restricted by anything. We have films that are long in duration, we have short films, anthologies, limited series, multi-season series, series with six or eight episodes.... The idea is to bring out the diversity of our culture, to bring out the diversity of our storytelling.

We saw quite a bit of original programming coming in from south India in the last year. Going forward, will you be looking at tapping other regional markets for original content?

We currently have about 11 languages on the service. We have steadily tried to build our catalogue of non-Hindi language licensed titles. We have The Disciple coming in in Marathi at the moment. Paava Kadhaigal was our first Tamil original last year, and then we recently had the Telugu anthology Pitta Kathalu. This year, we have Navarasa and Jagame Thandhiram. We are taking baby steps and there will be more going forward.

Any plans for original Bengali content in the near future?

We are always striving to be a platform that caters to everyone. We saw great success — although it was not in Bengali — with Bulbbul, which was set in that region, and found love all over the world. These are all encouraging signs. But content takes a long time to find its best voice and we will move towards that.

Movie theatres have opened up and theatrical release dates are being announced left, right and centre. How do you see that impacting Netflix, given that in 2020, streaming platforms were the only medium to release content?

At Netflix, we have always been committed to doing original films. Even last year, when we launched 17 films, almost 60 per cent of them were intended to come to Netflix directly. So most of the content that we will put out even now is something that was always originally intended for the service. I always say that it’s never an and/or situation, it’s always a situation depending on what’s happening at the time. I am someone who likes going to movie theatres with my son. We welcome the opening of theatres, and post the theatrical release, a lot of these films will come to Netflix as well.

How does Netflix view the guidelines with respect to content that the Information & Broadcasting ministry is looking to put in place?

We are always intending to be responsible. Our primary responsibility is always towards the viewers and society. The intention is never to hurt the sentiments of an individual, group or community. We want to entertain our audience by working with great talent and by telling amazing, authentic stories. That’s the endeavour and that will always continue.

Where does Netflix see itself in India in the next two years?

We want to be the home for films in India. We’ve received a lot of encouragement on that front. We have already launched over 30 original films, out of which 17 were last year. We want to churn out content that will be in your comfort zone, as well as challenge you sometimes as a viewer.

Mithila Palkar & Dhruv Sehgal in Little Things Season 4 Sourced by the correspondent

t2 Watchlist

Films

• Ajeeb Daastaans

Directors: Shashank Khaitan, Raj Mehta, Neeraj Ghaywan, Kayoze Irani

Cast: Jaideep Ahlawat, Konkona Sen Sharma, Aditi Rao Hydari, Shefali Shah, Manav Kaul, Tota Roy Choudhury, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Nushrratt Bharuccha

• Bulbul Tarang

Director: Shree Narayan Singh

Cast: Sonakshi Sinha, Tahir Raj Bhasin

• Dhamaka

Director: Ram Madhvani

Cast: Kartik Aaryan, Mrunal Thakur, Amruta Subhash

• Haseen Dillruba

Director: Vinil Mathew

Cast: Taapsee Pannu, Vikrant Massey, Harshvardhan Rane

• Meenakshi Sundareshwar

Director: Vivek Soni

Cast: Abhimanyu Dassani, Sanya Malhotra

• Navarasa

Producers: Mani Ratnam, Jayendra Panchapakesan

Cast: Revathy, Parvathy, Vijay Sethupathy, Arvind Swamy, Siddarth, Prakash Raj

• Pagglait

Director: Umesh Bist

Cast: Sanya Malhotra, Sayani Gupta, Ashutosh Rana, Raghubir Yadav

• Penthouse

Director: Abbas-Mustan

Cast: Bobby Deol, Arjun Rampal, Sharman Joshi, Mouni Roy, Cyrus Broacha, Tisca Chopra

• Sardar Ka Grandson

Director: Kaashvie Nair

Cast: Neena Gupta, Arjun Kapoor, Rakul Preet Singh, John Abraham, Aditi Rao Hydari

• The Disciple

Director: Chaitanya Tamhane

Cast: Aditya Modak, Arun Dravid

Series

• Aranyak

Director: Vinay Waikul

Cast: Raveena Tandon, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Ashutosh Rana

• Bombay Begums

Director: Alankrita Shrivastava and Bornila Chatterjee

Cast: Pooja Bhatt, Shahana Goswami, Amruta Subhash, Plabita Borthakur, Aadhya Anand

• Decoupled

Director: Hardik Mehta

Cast: R. Madhavan, Surveen Chawla

• Feels Like Ishq

Directors: Ruchir Arun, Tahira Kashyap Khurrana, Ashima Chibber, Anand Tiwari, Danish Aslam, Jaydeep Sarkar, Sachin Kundalkar

Cast: Radhika Madan, Amol Parashar, Rohit Saraf, Tanya Maniktala

• Finding Anamika

Directors: Karishma Kohli and Bejoy Nambiar

Cast: Madhuri Dixit Nene, Sanjay Kapoor, Manav Kaul

• Mai

Directors: Anshai Lal, Atul Mongia

Cast: Sakshi Tanwar,Raima Sen, Wamiqa Gabbi, Vivek Mushran, Seema Pahwa

• Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein

• Showrunner

Director: Sidharth Sengupta

Cast: Tahir Raj Bhasin, Shweta Tripathi, Anchal Singh, Saurabh Shukla

• Ray

Directors: Srijit Mukherji, Vasan Bala, Abhishek Chaubey

Cast: Manoj Bajpayee, Gajraj Rao, Kay Kay Menon, Ali Fazal, Harshvardhan Kapoor, Radhika Madan

Back with a bang

• Delhi Crime S2

• Kota Factory S2

• Little Things S4

• Mismatched S2

• Masaba Masaba S2

• She S2

• Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives S2

• Jamtara S2

• The Big Day

• Collection S2