'Haddi' Director Akshat Opens Up On Nawazuddin-Starrer, Says 'It Was Conceived During Mukkabaaz Post-Production Days'

New Delhi: Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui got fans hooked on his look of transgender in the upcoming streaming film 'Haddi' ever since its first look dropped. The film stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Anurag Kashyap in lead roles along with Ila Arun, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Saurabh Sachdeva, Shridhar Dubey, Rajesh Kumar, Vipin Sharma, and Saharsh Shukla in supporting roles. 

The film is against the backdrop of modern ruins in NCR, Gurgaon, and Noida, and gives a peek into the life of Haddi, a rookie transgender, portrayed by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who comes from Allahabad to Delhi to join a gang of transgenders and climbs up to the top of the criminal chain to avenge his family who was wronged by a mighty powerful gangster turned politician played by Anurag Kashyap.

The hard-hitting noir revenge drama is directed by the debutant Akshat Ajay Sharma. 

Akshat Sharma opened up on his experience of working with Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Anurag Kashyap. He also opened up on the storyline of 'Haddi' and what is so special or different about this film.

He said, "Haddi was conceived during my post-production days on Mukkabaaz. I used to travel back and forth from Parel to Andheri and on the way, I’d often see transgenders/prostitutes baiting their customers. My then flat-mate and co-writer on the film [Haddi] Bhalla told me that they are actually “Pickup Boys” as they are males cross-dressed as women. Our initial research and discussions with these boys, the cops, and the ‘customers’ unearthed the fact that while few of them were genuine, most of them had nothing to do with the LGBTQ community. It is a criminal nexus that mostly traps the customers and robs them off and is actively working in a lot of metro cities. They would do it because it helped them keep ‘the regular public’ away."

Further, he added, "At the same time, I often kept bumping into members of the Kinner community who you would often encounter at traffic signals or at random spots trying to beg for money to make a living. Their world was in complete contrast – it had culture, it was law-abiding, and it was looked up to for their blessings. All they wanted was sustainable living, love, and respect. Thanks to our societal norms, our Indian population always tends to avoid any contact with the third gender or anyone from the LGBTQ community. What’s interesting is that the PickUp Boys functioned during nights while members from the Kinner community would make a living during the day."

"By making this film, we thought that we needed to talk about them and therefore Haddi was born. The different thing about this film is its world."
  
"There are three distinct worlds in the film. First, the hetero-political world of power resided by power brokers. Secondly, the criminal nexus of men who run the ring of prostitution - the doers of the dirty deeds for the first world. And lastly, the cultural world of the Kinner/Hijra community -the actual community that has been forever a part of our culture, mythology, and society. The community that’s always finding a way to exist in harmony with society," he concluded.  

Produced by Zee Studios and Anandita Studios, 'Haddi' will premiere on ZEE5 on September 7, 2023.