Anurag Kashyap Short Films

“I guess short films have a bright future… The advantage is budget.”

~Anurag Kashyap.

Anurag Kashyap movies are known for their Tarantino-Esque violence and humor. It is the ability to make people laugh during the bloodiest of scenes. Anurag Kashyap has not only brought the necessary change in Hindi cinema but also gave it a new identity that we could be proud of. He is one of the faces of the new wave in Indian cinema along with Ram Gopal Verma, Vishal Bhardwaj, Dibaker Banerjee, and Tigmanshu Dhulia. Anurag Kashyap delivered some of the best Bollywood movies of this century. Anurag is perhaps the only modern-day director in India who makes realistic films with high entertainment value.

His scripts are always out of the box. While the majority of the industry focuses on making masala entertainment and romantic comedies, his genres mainly revolve around crime thriller, political-drama (which need not involve actual political parties), and noir. He has this eye for stories and his storytelling is indeed commendable. But do you know even he started his carrier by making a short film, “Last Train to Mahakali” The last train to Mahakali (1999) is a short film written and directed by Anurag Kashyap. It was made for the star plus television series star bestsellers and was the first telecast in 1999. The film won the special jury award at the 8th annual star screen awards.

The story deals with a serial killer on death row, being interviewed by a journalist. When she tries to dig deep, he professes innocence stating that all these so-called murders were part of his experiment to free man of disease. The story then takes a form of a number of flashbacks narrating what went wrong. The story is simplistic in its tone, yet draws in the viewer till the very end when the surprise hits them.

Apart from this, he did anthology films with a common theme where he collaborates with other great filmmakers. He did 'Murabba'- part of 'Bombay Talkies'- an anthology of four short films that were screened at the Cannes Film Festival 2013. In 2018 he did Lust stories and in 2020 he again collaborates and brings a genre that is still alien to many Indian filmmakers, ghost stories (2020). He has also co-produced five short films with Viacom 18.

So, he is the one person who gives hope to many new filmmakers who want to enter the film industry and don’t have any connection in the industry. He is a torchbearer for such an enthusiastic filmmaker. Kashyap is not that fond of glamour. His movies have always had an unconventional, not necessarily glamorous, cast and crew that significantly add to the realistic cinema that he intends to make. These actors have not only given commendable performances but his movies have given us gems like Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Richa Chadda, and many more actors. If you are the kind of person who feeds on thrill and gore, Kashyap is definitely your favorite Indian filmmaker.