A Burst of PATRIOTIC FERVOUR

Filmmakers are revisiting India's colonial past to bring our forgotten stories and heroes to life for future generations

- SUHANI SINGH

For the past few years, all Nikhil Advani has been doing is directing dhoti-kurta-clad men rallying for freedom. He doesn't mind being labelled the chief chronicler of India's colonial history. It started with SonyLIV's Freedom at Midnight (2024-) whose second season will drop later this year, and continues with Amazon Prime series Revolutionaries, which he is currently shooting. “History fascinates me, especially this period. We cannot erase history. We should allow people to understand it and not take it for granted,” Advani says, as he gets ready for a night shift of Revolutionaries unfolding on a sprawling set in Madh Island in Mumbai. If Freedom at Midnight captured how India's greatest leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel banded together for India's independence, Revolutionaries, Advani says, centres on a group of young boys with a more straightforward mission— “We will not ask them [the British] to leave, we will just throw them out.”

Advani is not alone in mining India's colonial past for inspiration. Others, too, are focusing their lens on pivotal events and figures of the era. Recently, Ram Madhvani directed The Waking of a Nation (also on SonyLIV), a courtroom drama that documents the events leading up to the Jallianwala Bagh killings and follows one man's pursuit of truth and justice in its aftermath. Akshay Kumar's Kesari Chapter 2