Nikkhil Advani says second season of ‘Freedom at Midnight’ will tackle ‘the refugee crisis’
Mumbai, Nov 27 (IANS) Filmmaker Nikkhil Advani announced the second season of ‘Freedom at Midnight’, which is adaptation of Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre’s 1975 non-fiction book about India’s independence, with plans for a second season already in motion.
The seven-episode first season ends on a cliffhanger, with showrunner Advani confirming that Season 2 will tackle the refugee crisis that followed India’s partition.
Speaking to variety.com, Advani said: “Twenty to thirty million people are going to be uprooted from their homes. What Gandhi had predicted was going to happen. Everybody felt that partition was going to be the answer to quell the violence and to stop it. Mahatma Gandhi said it is only going to become worse.”
Advani was in Goa to participate in the recently concluded market Film Bazaar, which was part of the ongoing International Film Festival of India (IFFI).
Advani was in a panel discussion organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry hosted on a yacht from the Indian Motion Picture Producers’ Association.
The second season of the show is scheduled to launch in 2025, as per Danish Khan, executive VP and business head of SonyLIV and StudioNext.
“We will tell stories of India in a very authentic, cerebral way. There is a set of people who are our subscribers who appreciate highly researched, authenticated work,” he added.
Talking about the main challenges, Advani said: “The events between August 16, 1946, when (Muhammad Ali) Jinnah chose to give the Direct Action Day speech, and January 30, 1940 – these events are indisputable.”
“It’s almost like a roller coaster.”
“The biggest challenge was how do you adapt a 1000-page book (that too a non-fiction book at that) without losing the essence of it. And manage to make it enjoyable for a large swathe of audience who may or may not be lovers of history,” SonyLIV head of content Saugata Mukherjee added.
–IANS
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