SuperBoys of Malegaon, Trailer launch: The new Mollywood

Utter the word Malegaon and a sleepy small town, in Nashik, 270 km from Mumbai, population 8,00,000, comes to mind. Some two decades ago, a bunch of Malegaonists, with no exposure to the art, dreamt about making their own film, inspired by big Hindustani films from Mumbai. Against all odds, they succeeded. Ideal subject for a documentary? Indeed! One was made, and widely acclaimed. Years later, three major film-making firms—Excel Entertainment of Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar, Tiger Baby of Reema Kagti and Zoya Akhtar, and Amazon MGM Studios Prime Video of OTT fame--joined hands to produce a feature film on these film-makers and their indigenous industry. Films in a film? Exactly. They called it SuperBoys of Malegaon. It is on the verge of release, and the trailer was launched on February 12, at the Juhu PVR multiplex. And the four producers, along with Nikhil Madhok, Head of Originals at Amazon Prime Video, Varun Grover, who has written the film, and three members of the cast, Adarsh Gourav (who plays Nasir Shaikh), Shashank Arora and Vineet Kumar Singh, turned up, to share their thoughts on the occasion.

Malegaon is a city in Nashik District of Maharashtra. It is situated on the bank of the Girna river, with Mosam River flowing through middle of the city, dividing it in two parts. Malegaon is famous for its cloth-making loom industry. The Indian film-industry was taken by surprise when a documentary called Malegaon Ke Supermen was released, in 2014. Supermen of Malegaon  was originally made as a documentary, for a Singapore TV channel. No wonder one of the producers is named Chung-yong Park. Shot over seven months in 2008, it told the story of a town that is plagued with communal tensions, poverty and hardship, even riots and bomb blasts, in yesteryear. To get away from all this, some of its imaginative residents have taken to making spoofs on Bollywood movies.

The documentary was directed by Faiza Ahmed Khan, a Mumbai based woman film-maker. It starred Shakeel Bharti, Farogh Jafri, Badshah Khan, Akram Khan, Shafique and Nasir Shaikh. Of these, Nasir was present at the trailer launch. He was also taken along to various film festivals where SuperBoys of Malegaon was shown, including Toronto. At TIFF, seeing the overwhelming response that the film garnered, 50 year-old Nasir was moved to tears, and could barely speak. It was no different at the trailer launch in Mumbai, where he spoke little, and sat moist-eyed for most of the time.

When this writer asked him whether Nasir was now planning to make a regular feature movie, he replied that he was planning one, but it would still be made in Malegaon, not in Mumbai. Ritesh Sidhwani stated that after making a handful of films, Malegaon had earned the sobriquet of ‘Mollywood’ against Mumbai’s Bollywood, making it India’s second Mollywood, after the Malayalam film industry, which is also called Mollywood. It can also be called the spoof capital of India, where Malegaon ke Sholay, Malegaon ki Shaan, Malegaon ki Lagaan and Malegaon ka Don were made.

Reema Kagti added, “We have seen the documentary, and all of us loved it. But we felt that there was material here for a feature. Our film goes beyond the documentary. SuperBoys of Malegaon is a fiction about a fiction.” Shared Varun Grover, “This film needed extensive research and I am indebted to the two researchers who helped me collect all the material. And with Nasir Sheikh himself on board, the research became very fruitful, for Nasir is a treasure trove of memories. He even has a picture of his late father playing chess with his doppelganger, done through trick photography, at which he excelled.” “Superboys of Malegaon is a shining example of the universal appeal of authentic Indian narratives”, said Nikhil Madhok, Head of Originals, Prime Video India. “Its theatrical release across India, the US, UK, UAE, Australia, and New Zealand marks a landmark moment as Amazon MGM's first Indian original film to debut in cinemas globally. This exciting step reflects our commitment to delivering bold, diverse, and thought-provoking stories to audiences worldwide. We’re deeply grateful to our incredible collaborators, Excel Entertainment and Tiger Baby, for bringing this extraordinary journey to life, and we can’t wait to share this uplifting tale on the big screen!”

With the documentary, in 2014, Nasir became a sensation. But reality did catch-up with him, a few years later. A September 2017 newspaper report says that, “Five years down the line, reality has caught up with this dream project. Unable to cope with piracy, the rise of online streaming, and resistance from religious heads and other villagers, Nasir diverted into the hospitality industry, and opened Hotel Prince. He also became more devout, and began to offer Namaz regularly.” But destiny had allotted much more fame and popularity to Nasir. Nasir got an opportunity to direct a TV show for SAB TV, where he created a silent comedy show, Malegaon Ka Chintu, in 26 episodes inspired by his favourite, Charlie Chaplin. The superhero’s mission is to save Malegaon, Maharashtra’s textile hub, from a tobacco-loving villain. In a cruel twist of fate, Shafique Shaikh, who played the lead, was addicted to tobacco and succumbed to mouth cancer six hours after the film screening. He was merely 25-years-old and is survived by his wife and two young daughters.

Qatil Khazana was the first film made in Malegaon, in 1972, by Ghulam Mohammed Zaidi, a film-maker who paved the way for future film-makers in the town, like Nasir Shaikh. Nasir began by collecting photos and posters of popular films, and copy-pasted his face on the faces of the heroes. In the year 2000, Nasir borrowed Rs 50,000 from his brother, and made his first spoof film — Malegaon ke Sholay. He shot it on a Handycam, and edited it on a VCR. He screened the film in his video parlour, and it ran for over two months generating a profit of Rs 2,00,000.

There is a line in the film, uttered by a tormented pen-pusher, “Writer baap hota hae, …writer!” meaning the writer (of any film) is the father. Varun, who wrote the dialogue, was asked whether he ascribed to this view personally. He parried the question, suggesting that every department has a “father” heading it, but Ritesh gave it to him. “The writer is the father. Unless he writes the script, nothing moves. All the departments of film-making come into motion only after the writer has written the script.”

Varun’s script traces the development of commoners, like a power-loom worker and a dates vendor, into film personalities. They pledge that since they cannot afford to go to Mumbai to fulfil their dream, they will have to bring Mumbai to Malegaon, in making Malegaon ke Sholay, wherein the role played by Hema Malini in Sholay, named Basanti, is renamed Basmati (a variety of high quality rice). In the film, indebted to Nasir Shaikh (Adarsh Gourav), the director, the team gives him all credit. “You have done for us what nobody in the universe could have done. You have given us a place in history.”

As Nasir is now all of 50 years old, he must have been born in 1975, the year in which Sholay was released. Thus 2025 is the golden jubilee year for both Nasir and the iconic film. Ominous and uncanny? Another titbit. If you split the word Malegaon into Male and Gaon, it would mean the village of males, in Hinglish. Curiously, though, there is no shortage of women in conservative Malegaon, Nasir and company could not any woman to agree to play the lead role. Finally, they had to scout around neighbouring villages, and managed to get an ‘actress’.

SuperBoys of Malegaon comes to theatres on February 28.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/Jl6XYTGTKFQ