Junglywood Trailer Shows Only 20%, Riz Ahmed Emails Director
Chand Mohammad on Riz Ahmed's email, the insider-outsider debate, and why Junglywood is a dark comedy built around Bollywood parties.
For writer-director Chand Mohammad, the Bollywood party circuit is more than a red-carpet backdrop. It is the stage for Junglywood, a dark comedy and psychological thriller that folds the industry’s loudest argument — the insider-outsider and nepotism debate — into a single, entertaining story.
In a new interview with Filmfare, the filmmaker explains that the idea began with a simple gap: he had not seen an Indian film built around Bollywood parties. As he kept reading about the nepotism conversation, the two threads fused.
A serious subject, treated as fun
Chand is clear that Junglywood is not a message film with a target list. “We’re not targeting anyone,” he says. The team wanted to have fun with the making and give audiences the same experience.
The trailer, he says, reveals only “perhaps only 20 per cent of what the film actually has to offer.” The fuller film looks at both sides of the insider-outsider divide, asking why insiders are where they are and what outsiders genuinely deserve.
Riz Ahmed asked to see the trailer
The project has already earned a meaningful nod from British actor and musician Riz Ahmed. Chand, who has followed Ahmed’s work for almost six years, from Nightcrawler to Digger, reached out and shared his story.
Instead of a polite social-media thank-you, Ahmed sent an email a couple of days later asking to watch the trailer. For a debut filmmaker, Chand says, that time from a busy, established performer was an encouragement he will remember.
Independent, practical and deliberate
Chand spent almost three years finding the right crew — cinematographer, technicians, assistants and the VFX team — who understood his vision. Even the film’s title card was created practically, part of an old-school approach he wants to keep.
He calls independent filmmaking “a film school in itself.” There is no fixed guidance and very little external pressure, which lets a writer-director attempt something original. It is also why he started writing his own scripts after established writers were not keen to work with a newcomer.
His influences sit across different schools: David Fincher for craft, Anurag Kashyap for the independent route, and Rajkumar Hirani for stories that carry a message and still connect widely.
Will audiences still show up?
Chand does not buy the idea that OTT platforms and short-form video have made viewers impatient. Yes, there is a large audience for shorter content, but people who love cinema will still watch a slow, long film when the story holds them.
- Start with a debate the audience already talks about, then make it entertaining rather than preachy.
- Build the crew slowly around a shared vision; practical filmmaking needs collaborators who love the process.
- Trust a strong story over runtime anxiety — engaged viewers will sit through a long film.
His measure is simple: if the content is good, people will come to the theatre. The challenge for a new director is not attention span; it is making something worth the three-and-a-half hours.
Source: Filmfare
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