"It's story about people fighting for our future": Director Richie Mehta on 'Poacher'

Directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Richie Mehta it stars Nimisha Sajayan, Roshan Mathew and Dibyendu Bhattacharya.

In an interview with ANI, Richie Mehta said, "It is about wildlife crime fighters in India, a story about people fighting for our future. Young people are motivated to do everything they can in their power and more to save what they believe is the planet. These wildlife crime fighters are trying to save the entire ecosystem. It's inspired by a true story, the largest elephant poaching case in the history of India, and how these people came together and figured out, with very little support, how to navigate this."

Bhattacharya said, "They are crusaders. The work they are involved in, people don't understand that work even today. At one time, animal hunting was considered heroic. So we have souvenirs, like skulls, and horns, everywhere. It's a very chauvinistic world. It's very sad."

He added, "I didn't prefer for any role... It's a duty as an actor and as a professional and trained actor with having theatre background and now into cinematic, to explore this day-to-day life. I want to be connected to the society... By the time the blood and flesh of the actor gets in the role, the character remains at the surface level and looks artificial... We have a fantastic director and script... This script is based on real-life characters and all I needed was to get the soul of the character and then the process follows."

Nimisha Sajayan said, "I met the real Mala, you know, it's based on a real person. I met him for like two hours something and I think it's impossible to know a person in two hours. So I just asked him a question how do you feel when you get to know about these poaching cases he just said, just imagine something very close to your heart is taken away and your home gets robbed, how would you react? So, it's like the jungle is my home and elephants, they are poaching my elephants. So, that reply just made me understand who the character is. How emotionally committed the character is to the jungle."

Roshan Mathew said, "The character that had been given, he's a computer programmer, he solves wildlife crime, he's a father, he's a husband, he likes snakes, knows a lot about them. A lot of these things are very distant from who I am. So it was also like an interesting journey trying to find him and trying to find his reasons and his purpose and where he gets all his energy from."

Director Richie Mehta said, "The short teaser is just giving you an idea of the importance of this crime that we have to be equating the life of an elephant, same to the life of a person, because that is the weight that we have to start considering these things. Mala's character is a poacher, a historical hunter for a father. There were a few people who Mala is based on. And they carried this baggage, that at some point my family was responsible for destroying a lot of the charismatic species in this jungle, and now I need to make up for this."

Richie Mehta added, "A lot of the species we're talking about would benefit immensely from our absence. So it's not about what is our relationship with them. It's our relationship should be the preservation of their ecosystem and then stand back and give them the space that they need because what that ecosystem is doing for us as human beings is immeasurable. That's the narcissistic, anthropogenic argument. It's about giving them the space and standing back, not going to see elephants, letting them be."

Makers of the upcoming crime series 'Poacher' unveiled its official trailer on Thursday.

'Poacher' is produced by Oscar-winning production company QC Entertainment and created, written, and directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Richie Mehta, with Alia Bhatt as Executive Producer of the series.

The trailer provides a glimpse into the heartbreaking reality of the merciless and incessant killing of elephants.

It follows a diverse group of wildlife custodians comprising forest crime fighters, police personnel, and good Samaritans, in their relentless quest to expose the largest ivory poaching ring in Indian history.

Based on true events, 'Poacher' sheds light on the consequences of human actions driven by personal gain and greed, emphasizing the potential risks and endangering these species.

'Poacher' is all set to stream on the OTT platform Amazon Prime Video from February 23 in English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi. (ANI)