Bhav Dhulia On Why He Made Debut As Director With Web Series: To Mount A Film You Need A Huge Megastar But In OTT There Is No Such Pressure

'Khakee: The Bihar Chapter' director Bhav Dhulia started his career as an assistant director. He was an associate director for lots of big films like 'Paan Singh Tomar', 'Drishyam' and 'Madaari' among others. Being an assistant director he could have followed the route of directing a feature film for big screen but unlike others, Bhav chose to make his directorial debut in the OTT space. 'Khakee' was his first project where he collaborated with stalwart filmmaker Neeraj Pandey. The show got him lots of appreciation and accolades. Now, he is all set to enthral the audience with yet another show, 'The Freelancer' where he has joined hands with Pandey again. The web series is all set to premiere on Disney+Hotstar from September 1. 

Ahead of the release of the show, we had a freewheeling conversation with Bhav where we asked him why he chose OTT space to make his debut as director. To which he said, ''My aim was to make films but what happened earlier is to mount a film you always need a big star or a production house at that time. Getting a break takes a lot of time and at that time the times were changing. OTT was just coming into being and not only me. Most of my peers who have done web series, all of us were like 'this is our avenue and this is how we get our break'.''

He added, ''OTT space is the place where we can get our break. You had the opportunity to tell different stories and there was no pressure of landing a huge megastar. Most of my peers who were young directors have always gone to the web series world and in the end, if the story is good in a web series, you can get to tell a long story and can get into a lot of characters. So, that was a blessing in disguise as in web series you get to see different stories as well.''

Asked about the advantages of directing in the long format, Dhlulia said, ''The biggest advantage of directing in OTT space is you get to tell a story in a more detailed fashion. You are telling a story across 7-8 episodes. In a film, you have to tell the story in 2 hours. Secondly, you get to explore the world a lot more. Like in The Freelancer, we have explored the world of Indian mercenaries operating from Europe, North Africa and ISIS. You get this opportunity to go into detail only on OTT. Whatever new story you have seen over the last two-three years has come on OTT be it The Night Manager or Criminal Justice. The stories you get to tell in a long fashion explore with characters that only happen in a long format''. 

'The Freelancer' stars Anupam Kher, Mohit Raina, Sushant Singh and Kashmira Pardeshi in pivotal roles. Produced by Friday Storytellers, Neeraj Pandey is the creator and the showrunner.