“Cinema is my prayer, it is my protest, and my purpose.” Anshuman Jha, the lover boy of Dibakar Banerjee’s Love Sex Aur Dhokha, has come a long way. After making his presence felt as an actor-producer in India’s first animal vigilante flick, Lakadbaggha, he is making his directorial debut with Lord Curzon Ki Haveli, a rare chamber film from the vaults of Hindi cinema whose trailer is garnering attention following its eventful festival run, which includes a European premiere at the Razor Reel Flanders in Belgium, world’s leading genre film festival.
Set in a summer home in Yorkshire, it is the story of one night that spirals out of control after two couples gather for dinner and the host jokes about a dead body in a trunk. Laced with dark humour and lit up by Rasika Duggal, Arjun Mathur, Paresh Pahuja, and Zoha Rahman, it combines Hitchcockian suspense and mystery with colonial history and social commentary in a satirical and quirky way. The movie hits the screens on October 10, 2025.
Having assisted a diverse range of filmmakers, including Dibakar and Gauri Shinde, as well as Ram Madhavani and Subhash Ghai, Anshuman says the inspiration for the movie came from the German play Mr. Kolpert, which he presented at the Thespo Theatre Festival in 2005. “The suspenseful story and its dark humour stayed with me, and then I am a huge fan of Hitchcock’s Rope. I realised, in India, we have stopped making chamber films. Trapped is the last film that I remember.”
Anshuman took the idea to Bikas Mishra, who directed him in the much feted Chauranga. “After the second draft, I told Bikash that it had to be shot with a single lens. At some point, I felt that I could only listen to Beethoven while reading it.”
Soon, Bikash suggested that I direct it. “Otherwise, he felt I would ghost direct it,” laughs Anshuman, sharing technical details like how the colour scheme gets darker with each act and the single lens gets closer to the characters as the tension mounts.
Unsure about the funding, he pitched the story at the South Asian Film Market in Singapore, and Vistas Media Acquisition Company picked it up. However, COVID slowed the process for the slow-burn to fructify. However, Anshuman says, the market’s interest didn’t wane.
The cast and crew of ‘Lord Curzon Ki Haveli’, directed by Anshuman Jha.
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Recently, the American rights to the film have been bought by Buffalo8. Anshuman believes in the dictum that budgets fail, films don’t. “Having good teachers in life taught me that if you remain the person you are, then you start doing what you love, and then you start having what you need. For any artist and a good human being, that is the process. The problem with our film industry is that they have what they want, not what they need.”
Beneath the cover of the genre, the film talks of identity and the insecurity of immigrants in a foreign land. Anshuman underlines that from LSD to Lakadbaggha, he consistently picked genre films with social undertones. ‘I know cinema can’t change society, but it can spark conversations. The process led me to create a black comedy thriller with layers, as Bikas envisioned in the screenplay. When I meet some of my friends from the UK, I find them unsure of their identity. When they are in India, their fake British accent flattens. I am married to an American. In India, Sierra is seen as an expat, but in the US, I am seen as an immigrant. I am an observer of life and have tried to weave these elements.”
The issue of Asian squatters is a recurring problem in the UK, particularly in the summer homes, he says. “Add to it the impression that Bonnie & Clyde and Natural Born Killers created on me during my college years, and I let my imagination work on the idea of identity and insecurity.”
The title, he says, draws from Viceroy Lord Curzon to reflect on the atrocities committed against Indians during his rule. “The British are quite squeamish about their history. I was unsure how the local audience would react to our film at the British Asian Film Festival, where it was the closing film. However, an overwhelming response made me wonder if so much of this black and white, you and me, is drilled into our heads that we have stopped looking at each other as individuals. Cinema has the power to bridge this divide.”
Anshuman will continue to hold the director’s baton in Lakadbaggha 2: The Monkey Business, which is expected to hit the screens in the first half of 2026. Shot in Indonesia, he promises the biggest hand-to-hand combat film rooted in India.
“Taking forward the adventures of animal-loving vigilante Arjun Bakshi, the idea is to make a global spectacle around an endangered species of monkeys, where I will be joined by Sunny Pang and Dang Chupon, who will bring their expertise in martial arts.”
The success of the Lakadbaggha franchise in both movie and comic form sparked a conversation around the protection of stray dogs. With the animals in the news again, Anshuman says one should give coexistence a chance before throwing them out. “If my maths serves me right, if we vaccinate them, we would spend one-tenth of the cost required for building shelters.”
Published – October 09, 2025 05:13 pm IST
