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National award-winning filmmaker Prakash Jha is known for helming acclaimed projects like 'Gangaajal', 'Raajneeti', 'Aarakshan' and the web series 'Aashram'.
He has also helmed Madhuri Dixit and Shabana Azmi starrer 1997's 'Mrityudand' which revolved around the story of three women dominated by a patriarchal society and their struggles to overcome it. In a recent interview with ANI, on being asked whether he considers 'Gangaajal' or 'Raajneeti' as the turning point of his career, Prakash Jha said "Mrityudand". He said, "What has happened in Mrityudand is that until then I was happy with doing pure cinema, telling my stories the way they are like 'Damul' and 'Parinati' and many years later I did another film 'Matto Ki Saikil,' that's pure cinema." Emphasizing more about 'pure cinema', he said, "There are two reasons when you make films ...one is because you want to tell a story, so you find the story and you tell it the way it is and you don't care whether it will find an exhibition or not because you want to stay pure and true to the cinema, true to the story. When I wrote the screenplay of Mrityudand, it got approved for a loan but I realized because the market had opened, new technologies had come it had become expensive. You can't make a film in Rs 12 lakhs. It will cost you Rs 25-30 lakhs and you have to earn at least Rs 40 lakhs to recover." The filmmaker also recalled how the casting of Madhuri Dixit happened in the film. He told ANI, "I had signed Pallavi Joshi for Mrityudand but I just couldn't make it and then I just met Subhash Ghai one day and he asked me 'what are you making?' so I narrated him the story of Mrityudand and he liked it. He asked me to make this film with Madhuri Dixit and then he (Ghai) introduced me to Madhuri on a film's set. She was shooting for the song 'Dhak Dhak Karne Laga' and in between the breaks I narrated her the story and by the end of the day she said yes and then it started." Talking about his future projects, Jha said, "I have just completed another web series 'Sankalp' which deals with part reality part fantasy, in which there is a whole aspiration of a section of a society which is dying to achieve something. To become IAS, IPS or IRS and there is someone who has a devious mind to use this whole thing to exploit a system or whatever it is. Nana Patekar, Sanjay Kapoor and Neeraj Kabi, and Kubra Sait are a part of the series." Apart from direction, Jha has also acted in films like 'Saand Ki Aankh' and 'Matto Ki Saikil'. (ANI)
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