Nag Ashwin says he felt he was doing ‘engineering, not filmmaking’ while making Kalki 2898 AD, reveals relevance of film’s title

Recently, Nag Ashwin attended an event at IIT Bombay, where he spoke about his dystopian drama, the film's title and his experience of working with stalwarts like Amitabh Bachchan and Kamal Haasan.

Prabhas in a still from Kalki 2898 AD.

Nag Ashwin directorial Kalki 2898 AD, starring Prabhas, Amitabh Bachchan, Deepika Padukone and Kamal Haasan, among others, is being touted as “India’s Mytho-Sci-fi Epic” by the makers. Recently, Ashwin attended an event at IIT Bombay, where he spoke about his dystopian drama, the film’s title and his experience of working with stalwarts like Bachchan and Haasan.

When an audience member asked Ashwin, why the film, which was earlier called Project K, has been titled Kalki 2898 AD and why specifically the 2898 AD, the filmmaker replied, “There is one logic to it which I will reveal closer to the film’s release date. But there is a logic, I don’t know how true or accurate it is.” When another person asked why Kalki, the director added, “It’s a very powerful name and it is something which is connected to present and past, and that’s what the story (of the film) is.” The tenth avatar of Lord Vishnu is also called Kalki.

Going by the teaser which was unveiled at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2023, Kalki 2898 AD looks like it revolves around a war between two factions. The film is backed by an able cast and Nag Ashwin had a great time working with them. “All of them are very humble and make the life of their director easy. They love cinema,” the filmmaker said about Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan and Prabhas.

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Kalki 2898 AD has been in the making for almost 4-5 years now, and during its making, Ashwin felt he is doing “engineering, not filmmaking” as everything, from the props and costumes to the sets was built “from scratch”.

“In India, we do not have a lot of sci-fi films. We have done a few time travel films. This one is different because it’s in a whole separate world on its own. Also, in the international sense, it is new because we have not seen India in a future setting or dystopian setting. So now we don’t have to look at London and New York being born, now we can see our cities also,” Aswin spoke about his film.

He added, “This movie took place in the cusp between before and after Midjourney and before and after Chat GPT. First two years, we did a lot of work and then we realised a lot of work became easier after this text-to-image and image-to-text generator happened.”

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Despite being asked by many about Kalki 2898 AD’s trailer and release date, Nag Ashwin refused to reveal anything. The multi-lingual sci-fi film is scheduled for a 2024 release.

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