#KetchupTalks: "There is an audience waiting for meaningful cinema, they just need to know it exists" - Tanmaya and Molshri on Nukkad Naatak

We sat down with the makers of the independent film Nukkad Naatak, which has been creating quite a buzz on social media for its unique marketing and promotional strategy!

If you’ve spent enough time on the internet, you might have come across two filmmakers tirelessly trying to make their film visible - Tanmaya Shekharand Molshri. Shekhar, the creator and director, mounted the project from scratch with the support of friends and family. An IITian himself, he tells the story of two engineering students navigating social realities larger than their campus. Molshri, a DU alumna and deeply drawn to socially conscious storytelling, came on board as the film’s leading actor. In a full-circle moment, the two former street theatre performers came together to createNukkad Naatak, shot on the campus of IIT Dhanbad. The film went on to win a Special Jury Award at the Kolkata International Film Festival, while Molshri received a Best Actress award at a London film festival for her performance.

And yet, the journey was far from easy. Despite festival recognition and multiple screenings, the film struggled to secure a release in India. That’s when Tanmaya and Molshri began experimenting, what started as a micro-drama born out of frustration evolved into a full-fledged promotional tour. Through trial, error, and sheer persistence, they’ve emerged as one of the most experimental voices in the independent space, driven by an almost childlike dream of achieving 100 houseful shows for a film where content, not celebrity, is the hero. To some industry insiders, their ambition may sound naive or unconventional. But their energy and their unwavering belief that meaningful cinema deserves an audience is undeniably infectious.

View this post on Instagram

Also Read: #BehindTheLens: "We used 3 different versions of crocs to sell our point.” - Debashis Remy Dalai on Tu Yaa Main

We spoke to them about their long journey, what the film truly stands for, and why they chose to take such an unconventional path to make it seen.

Nukkad Natak is a genre and a medium in itself and a very powerful one. What made you decide to bring Nukkad Natak into a film?

Tanmaya: At its core, the film engages with two significant social realities. The first is the education gap among underprivileged children in rural and semi-urban India. There are children who are articulate, expressive, and socially aware yet they cannot read or write. That paradox disturbed me deeply. The second theme explores the lived realities of LGBTQ individuals navigating conservative spaces, where identity often becomes a site of conflict rather than acceptance.

I performed street plays in colleges and it isn’t performative in the conventional sense as you stand in the middle of a public space and speak directly to people. The purpose is not applause; it is awakening, about social consciousness. Since our film deals with urgent social questions, I didn’t want it to feel like a lecture or a moral sermon. Hence Nukkad Natak became the artistic bridge, it allowed these themes to exist organically within the story. Instead of the film telling audiences what to think, it uses theatre as a medium to explore and question. 

In your videos, you’ve mentioned that the film will connect strongly with young people. Why do you believe that? How is it framed to resonate with youth?

T: The film fundamentally follows two college students - Molshri and Shivang. Structurally, it is a coming-of-age story. They make a mistake, something impulsive and immature, and as a consequence, they’re assigned community service. They are required to teach children in a nearby underprivileged colony, a world far removed from their own insulated campus life. At the surface level, the narrative progresses through events. But internally, something more profound unfolds. Both characters begin to confront questions they’ve never seriously engaged with before. Who am I outside my privilege? What kind of adult do I want to become? What responsibility do I carry simply by virtue of my education and access? So us telling a story about young individuals confronting their own blind spots, the resonance might come from authenticity as it mirrors what many are already experiencing in quieter ways.

Molshri:My character is rebellious in the way many young women are when they begin to question inherited systems. She wants to change the world, speak up, live on her own terms. During my college time, Nukkad Natak gave me that confidence as I realized what is it to form independent opinions instead of passively inheriting them and street theatre demands awareness since you can't stand in public and speak about injustice unless you've first engaged with it. Playing this role felt like returning to that formative version of myself - idealistic, questioning, searching. I think young audiences who are passionate yet still figuring out their direction will see parts of themselves in this journey.

View this post on Instagram

There’s often criticism that films today are not catering to Gen Z audiences. Do you feel your film fills that gap?

T and M: Honestly, we never approached the film with the intention of filling a demographic gap. We didn’t sit down and say, “Let’s make something for Gen Z.” We focused on telling an honest story about two young people and the circumstances that transform them. If today’s 18–25-year-olds identify as Gen Z and connect with the narrative, that’s wonderful. Interestingly, at film festivals, the response from young viewers has been emotional and overwhelming. We’ve had students approach us with tears in their eyes, saying they saw their own dilemmas reflected onscreen. When we shot at IIT Dhanbad, the Nukkad Natak performers featured in the film were not actors pretending to care, they were real Gen Z students who actively practice street theatre in their campus lives. They believed in the material. Their involvement reaffirmed that young people are deeply aware and often waiting for narratives that reflect that awareness.

From the trailer the film feels like a life-altering journey for the characters. Did making it change you personally?

T: The story is very personal. I grew up around IIT as my father was a professor there, and I pursued engineering myself. The campus environment felt familiar, structured, and privileged. A few years ago, my mother began teaching children in a colony adjacent to the campus. When I visited her there, I experienced something that genuinely unsettled me. Within a few kilometres, two entirely different India's coexisted. One was equipped with world-class infrastructure, ambition, and opportunity. The other lacked basic sanitation, stable education systems, and access to resources. That contrast stayed with me. It became the emotional seed of the film. During production, we worked closely with that colony community. And once filming ended, we didn’t want the engagement to disappear. We hired a teacher to continue educating the children. For me personally, the process expanded my worldview. I’m not from Delhi or Mumbai, I’m from Kanpur but this reinforced how arbitrary privilege can be - how much of our trajectory is determined simply by where we are born. That realization deepened my empathy. 

M: There’s a dialogue in the film where our characters visit a government school to speak about enrolling young children, and we’re told that IIT students should stay out of this. That moment really struck me because it reflects a very real divide. We often see IIT students preparing for high-paying corporate careers, while just outside the campus walls, children are struggling for something as fundamental as basic literacy. That contrast lingered with me long after the shoot. It made me reflect on how insulated we can become within our own bubbles of ambition and privilege. The experience pushed me to question what we choose to do with the opportunities we’ve been given. Since then, I’ve felt a stronger urge to contribute in ways that extend beyond my personal career goals to engage more consciously with the realities that exist around us.

View this post on Instagram

Your promotional strategyaims for 100 houseful shows. Why this specific goal? 

T and M: From a distribution standpoint, people often misunderstand what “screen count” really means. It doesn’t necessarily refer to different theatres, it refers to the number of showtimes a film gets. So if a film is playing four times a day in a single auditorium, that’s counted as four screens. We were allotted 100 showtimes. In comparison, mainstream commercial films like Dhurandhar release with fifteen to twenty thousand screens. So we had to ask ourselves: if we have 100 opportunities, how do we maximize each one? For independent cinema, the opening weekend is everything. If the numbers don’t perform immediately, theatres replace you very quickly. There’s very little breathing room. That’s why every single show matters to us. We already have one show that’s completely housefull, and we’re just waiting and hoping for the rest to follow.

And you are touring states and reaching audiences in every nook and corner. Is this approach inspired by the nature of street plays, or was there another motivation behind it?

M: We realised in film festivals that people don’t just organically show up for your film. There’s this romantic idea that if your film is selected at a festival, audiences will automatically discover it. But that’s not how it works. You have to first create awareness. The first time we went to the Kolkata International Film Festival, we invited everyone who had been involved with the film from Dhanbad, where we shot, along with some friends from Mumbai. We dressed in costume, showed up collectively, and even performed street plays there to draw attention and start conversations. That experience taught us that independent films, even at festivals cannot rely on organic discovery. You have to build your own momentum and consciously create visibility.

T: There are two aspects to this. We have many friends who are incredibly talented filmmakers and have made beautiful films, but they struggle to find releases because the ecosystem isn’t fully supportive. Sometimes producers aren’t aware. And even if producers know about the film, it still doesn’t reach the audience. There’s a huge gap between creation and access, and we felt a strong need to address that in whatever way we could. I was also very inspired by Zohran Mamdaniand his campaign strategy. As he used social media creatively and consistently to reach people beyond obvious numbers. It wasn’t about one viral post, it was about sustained messaging, strategic communication, and showing up again and again. We applied a similar mindset to our film’s promotion. We used Nukkad Natak as part of our outreach strategy, performed live acts in public spaces, engaged deeply and consistently on social media, and kept communicating the film’s journey. For us, promotion wasn’t separate from the film, it became an extension of its spirit.

You’ve been openly documenting your journey on social media about your struggles. But while there is Social media engagement it doesn’t often translate into ticket sales. Does that concern you?

T and M: We’ll only truly know on 27th February (laughs). Of course, the question of whether this will convert into numbers is always there. But that’s precisely what we’re testing. Can sustained effort, consistent outreach, transparent communication, and physical, on-ground engagement actually translate into footfalls? For us, the idea of aiming for 100 houseful shows isn’t just a marketing line, it feels like a national experiment. We’re asking a larger question - can strong storytelling, combined with grassroots promotion, carve out meaningful space for independent cinema in India? As the number of people who told us that this film wouldn’t work was huge. Even some independent filmmaker friends told us that releasing it in theatres would just be a waste of money.

But we thought, we’re not the first people to make a film like this. Many have come before us. The difference, perhaps, is that most stopped at just making the film. Our belief is that you can’t stop at creation; you have to market it with the same intensity and sincerity. If, after giving it our 100%, it still doesn’t succeed, then maybe we can say there’s a structural issue. But without trying our absolute best, it wouldn’t be fair to conclude that independent films have no future in India. If the story is good and the marketing is good, there has to be hope. There is an audience waiting for meaningful cinema, they just need to know it exists. At the end of the day, the first metric is simple - can we get people to buy tickets? Everything else - reviews, word of mouth, longevity follows from that.

View this post on Instagram

Rejection and systemic resistance can be exhausting. How do you cope with it?

T: This is my first film, but it’s also the first for our actors, music director, cinematographer, lyricist, and so many of us. It’s a collective beginning, and the work everyone has delivered is remarkable. I know every department has given their absolute best hence I believe this film can open doors for all of them. Despite a limited budget, the commitment was extraordinary. Molshri and Shivang rehearsed for two months before the shoot. We lived and worked together to build the film from scratch. Our music director, Prathmesh, worked on the soundtrack full-time for an entire year. When people invest that kind of time and faith in your vision, you feel accountable. As the director who brought everyone together, I carry a deep personal responsibility toward them. Their effort deserves to be seen and that responsibility, more than ambition, keeps me going.

Before this feature, you created micro-dramas. Was that a deliberate step in your trajectory?

The micro-drama emerged out of frustration. After completing our feature film, we entered the distribution maze with an hope that an OTT platform would acquire it. We scheduled numerous behind-closed-doors meetings, sent countless emails, and shared private screening links. We spent three to four months just navigating that space but nothing materialised. Often, those screening links weren’t even opened. The recurring response we received was, “The market is down. No films are being sold.” And given this was an independent film without backing or recognisable names, the conversation would end even faster. 

Mostly, people didn’t even say no directly, they simply ignored you. Even Imtiaz Alisir, who had watched and appreciated our film, approached OTT platforms on our behalf. But even then, the private links showed no views. Through these patterns, and silences we understood what was really happening. That’s when we decided that if the industry doesn’t open doors easily, we have to build an alternative entry point. Creating the micro-drama like “How to Enter Bollywood” became our way of staying visible, relevant, and hopeful instead of waiting for permission.

For more interviews, follow us on @socialketchupbinge.