Director Anurag Kashyap‘s “Monkey in a Cage” (titled “Bandar” in Hindi) makes its world premiere in the Toronto Film Festival’s Special Presentations program, marking another bold entry from the acclaimed filmmaker known for pushing boundaries in Indian cinema.
The prison drama, starring Bobby Deol, Sanya Malhotra, Sapna Pabbi and Saba Azad, explores the complex aftermath of #MeToo allegations in digital-age India through the story of Samar, an aging television star whose celebrity is waning. When his ex-girlfriend Gayatri accuses him of rape after he blocks all contact with her, Samar faces arrest and encounters a corrupt legal system determined to keep him behind bars.
“The idea came from a true story, but we obviously had to navigate very thin lines,” Kashyap tells Variety. “You don’t know who’s right, who’s wrong. There was rampant misuse of new laws, cases of one woman filing eight different cases in eight different police stations with the help of a lawyer and a policeman.”
The project originated when producer Nikhil Dwivedi brought a newspaper story to Kashyap’s attention. “As a filmmaker, diverse stories attract me,” Dwivedi says. “As much as possible for me, I try to avoid differentiating between them as commercial or offbeat. This subject fascinated me.”
What sets “Monkey in a Cage” apart from Kashyap’s previous work is its unflinching focus on India’s prison system. During research, the filmmakers visited prisons and discovered that 77% of inmates are accused of crimes and held in prison, but their cases take years to come to trial or sometimes never do. “There was a case of a man who came out of prison after 32 years and was declared innocent, but his case never came up for 32 years. That’s an entire lifetime,” Kashyap says.
The film casted exclusively from theater groups across different states to represent the linguistic diversity found in Indian prisons. “In a prison, people speak all kinds of languages,” Kashyap says, noting the inclusion of actors speaking the Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali and Marathi languages, including Raj B. Shetty and Natesh Hegde from Kannada, Indrajith Sukumaran from Malayalam, Riddhi Sen from Bengal and Ankush Gedam from Maharashtra.
For Bobby Deol, son of Bollywood legend Dharmendra and brother of superstar Sunny Deol, the role represents a career-defining moment following his recent resurgence in films like “Animal.” Cast in “Cage” before that film’s release, Deol brought personal experience to the character.
“Bobby himself said there was one day when he suddenly felt like his life was over, his career was over,” Kashyap reveals. “From the age of 5, he knew he’d be a star. When he was reaching 40, somebody told him he needed to do acting workshops. Nobody taught him how to learn acting. It was a revival for him.”
The director praises Deol’s commitment: “He played vulnerable. He totally put his whole vulnerable self out there. He said he was playing a person for the first time in his life. He was always playing a hero or a villain, and playing a person for the first time. He gave all of himself to the film.”
Co-star Sapna Pabbi’s London background was incorporated into her character, while Saba Azad was cast for her theatrical experience. “Authenticity matters,” Kashyap emphasizes. “When you interact with actors, you also borrow a lot from them.”
The collaboration with writer Sudip Sharma, known for Prime Video’s “Paatal Lok” and Netflix’s “Kohrra,” proved crucial. “I said the one writer I trust is Sudip. If he comes on board, then we’ll have some kind of solid material,” Kashyap notes. The project also features co-director Sakshi Mehta, who provided an opposite perspective during production.
The production proved emotionally demanding for all involved. “Every actor, every crew, everything had at some point or the other had a breakdown,” Kashyap admits. “It was so difficult because it’s a very thin line we work on.” While the director drew inspiration from classic prison films like “Carandiru” and “Midnight Express,” both of which he had seen years earlier, he deliberately avoided revisiting them during production to maintain his own authentic vision.
Producer Dwivedi, who transitioned from acting to producing, understood the commercial challenges. “No matter how passionate we are, the economics of filmmaking can never be fully ignored,” he says. “The real question is, are we chasing greed for hefty profits, or are we content knowing that good cinema, if it reaches audiences far and wide and sustains us just enough to stay in the business, is reason enough to keep going?”
Following its Toronto premiere, the film’s international distribution will be handled by executive producer Jeremy Chua (Venice winner “Autobiography”), while Dwivedi focuses on the Indian release planned for late 2025 or early 2026.
“I am hopeful that once we introduce it to the international market, the right champions will step forward to take it ahead, because a film like this deserves to find its audience everywhere,” Dwivedi says.
variety.com
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