Faadu director Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari on dearth of romance on screen: ‘The generation is impatient, no one wants to see love’

The show comes at a time when the streaming space is populated with gritty crime thrillers and the filmmaker shares with indianexpress.com that the reliance on this genre is happening globally.

“The kind of stories we started seeing across the world, especially during the lockdown, was a whole lot of crime thrillers and whodunnit. Once in a while a beautiful series would come and break the clutter, which people would like. Maybe we have just grown out of love,” she said.

Storytellers, Ashwiny said, are simply chroniclers of the society, so if there is lack of love on screen, it is perhaps because there is dearth of it in people’s lives.

“As storytellers, we get very influenced by what is happening outside. Maybe the audience, the generation is very impatient, no one wants to see love. But I think we are coming back to it now, because so much has happened, that a little bit of calmness is needed. I got a call from an important person, who told me they were happy to finally see a drama, a love story, which is calming down everything.”

The filmmaker said with Faadu, she has also observed something strange– that more men were warming up to the show’s promotional units, challenging the stereotype that romance as a genre is mostly consumed by women.

“If you have a good story and put it out there, people who have to watch it will watch it and connect. I realised that more than women, men were appreciating the teaser, posting comments, even my male friends called me. That gave me comfort. There is lack of love, you need it in this fast-paced life, where you find it but then you get busy on your phones,” she added.

According to the streamer, Faadu follows the story of Abhay, an angry poet and dreamer, who aspires to quickly reach the place from where he can observe his rags-to-riches story. In the ambitious journey of need and greed, he falls in love with Manjiri, a poetess, who functions on a different life philosophy.

Ashwiny said the show got its title–an unlikely name for a romantic-drama– from the ambition of Abhay’s character. “He wants everything not just good but kickass. For him life has to be super good, just brilliant and that’s why in Hindi colloquial term, it became Faadu.”

The filmmaker said mounting the series was like making four feature films. She had to learn the beats of making a taut OTT show, so that the audience stays invested throughout its 11 episodes run.

“It is a lot of responsibility. Like making four films with a lot of characters. I wanted to make Faadu for international standards. Here, everything matters, how you are cutting scenes, how are your transitions going to look like.

“You need to have that confidence, that this is what I am going to say and this is how I am going to do it. The fear which I had was that I didn’t want to lag anywhere where the audience hits the pause or the forward button. That’s a huge fear any storyteller would have.”

Written by playwright Saumya Joshi with music composed by Santhosh Narayanan, Faadu will stream on December 9 on SonyLIV.