India's DIY film industry comes to London festival

Superboys Of Malegaon tells the story of an amateur film-maker, his friends and their no-budget parodies of Bollywood and Hollywood classics

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The bright lights of the British capital are a world away from Malegaon, a down-at-heel textile town in the backwaters of Maharashtra state in western India.

But the two have come together at 2024's London Film Festival, where the remarkable story of Malegaon's unlikely film industry success had its European premiere on Oct 10.

Superboys Of Malegaon (2024), by director and producer Reema Kagti, follows the feel-good true story of amateur film-maker Shaikh Nasir and his friends, and their no-budget parodies of Bollywood and Hollywood classics such as Sholay (1975) and Superman (1978).

With do-it-yourself film-making techniques, amateur actors and the unique flavour of local dialect and comedy, his works became instant local hits.

They then gained international recognition with the release of a 2008 documentary of their work, Supermen Of Malegaon, which inspired Superboys Of Malegaon.

Malegaon's links to the giant Hindi-language film industry, though, are not so distant. By a twist of fate, Superboys' co-producer Zoya Akhtar's father Javed Akhtar wrote Sholay, which inspired Nasir's passion for film-making.

“It's a very, very big story from a very small town in India,” said Zoya Akhtar. “It tells you how connected you are, especially with cinema.”