Nikkhil Advani on The Revolutionaries: ‘Young people have always stood against injustice’
Nikkhil Advani began his directing career at a scale most filmmakers spend years working towards. His 2003 debut, Kal Ho Naa Ho , starred Shah Rukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Preity Zinta, and became a major commercial success. His latest series, The Revolutionaries , premieres globally on Prime Video on September 11 and follows young Indians who turn to armed resistance against British rule. Advani…
Nikkhil Advani, a director who began his career with the 2003 film Kal Ho Naa Ho, shares his thoughts on the current generation of young people in his latest series, The Revolutionaries. This series, which debuted on Prime Video on September 11, tells the story of young Indians who turned to armed resistance against British rule.
Advani explains that his career shift began when the security he once felt in star-led films fell away. He admits that his earlier movies, like Kal Ho Naa Ho and Salaam-e-Ishq, failed to match the success of Kal Ho Naa Ho, prompting him to take risks and tell the stories he wanted to tell. Advani's previous films, such as the 2013 political action thriller D-Day, led by Irrfan Khan and Rishi Kapoor, received strong reviews.
He states that making risky choices in his career provided him with artistic freedom and liberation, which he attributes to his decision to create D-Day and other political and historical projects. The Revolutionaries, which is adapted from Sanjeev Sanyal's non-fiction book Revolutionaries: The Other Story of How India Won Its Freedom, centers on the negotiations preceding Indian independence and Partition.
Bhuvan Bam plays Rash Behari Bose, Rohit Saraf portrays Sachindra Nath Sanyal, Gurfateh Pirzada plays Bagha Jatin, and Pratibha Ranta appears as Pratibha Lahiri. Advani emphasizes that young people have always stood against injustice, and The Revolutionaries aims to remind viewers that those who protested against British rule initially sought peaceful dialogue.
He hopes the series will transport viewers into the characters' world, making them feel their helplessness and the injustice they faced. Advani acknowledges Gandhi's later non-violent approach, recognizing that hindsight can lead to different perspectives. However, he believes that armed resistance seemed like the only choice for those living through the British colonization and enslavement for 200 years.
The Revolutionaries aims to encapsulate the potent frustration felt by a 20-something-year-old who sees the British colonisation and enslavement as wrong and wants to end it.
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