Interview with Dibakar Das Roy, the director and screenwriter of "Dilli Dark", interviewer Malaika Bova
"The hip-hop comedy tells us of Michel from Nigeria, who is working on his Master’s degree in New Delhi. He dreams of true love and a proper job in the corporal world, but as things stand for him now, his only option is to work as a part-time cocaine dealer and live in a communal apartment with racist roommates to support his studies. “Dilli Dark” shows us the notoriously hostile and segregating side of New Delhi, a city known for its multicultural population, where the color of one’s skin can be enough to label him as a cannibal.
The director Roy has lived in New Delhi for many years and in a way, the film reflects his experience of the city. He has admitted that in the beginning, the screenplay was difficult to write because it portrays the many worlds of New Delhi and everybody’s behavior and dialogue had to be done right. Never mind that there are four languages spoken in the film, as it is in many New Delhi circles.
The film talks clearly about New Delhi’s racism and other social issues plaguing the city, but instead of moralizing, the film approaches the problems with ridicule and sharply delivers the message to the audience through humor.
“Taking interesting themes, important themes, but working very hard on them to almost dumb it down. You might feel like it’s very direct, right, but it’s very intentional.” - Dibakar Das Roy
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