"With my characters in 'Trial By Fire', I tried not to judge them nor their situation" - Director Randeep Jha

Netflix's recently released series, Trial By Fire has managed to attain an immense amount of critical acclaim and that further catapulted the continued appearance of the show in the Top 5 for two weeks. Dealing with the saga of Uphaar tragedy and the extreme struggle the likes of Neelam Krishnamoorthy and Shekhar Krishnamoorthy went through in their fight with the judicial system for over 20 years.

We managed to get into an exclusive conversation with one of the directors of the show, Randeep Jha and had him answer multiple questions.

When we asked him about how this is his second full-fledged directorial after the Barun Sobti-Sachin Khedekar starrer, Halahal. 

Q - So, there seems to be a particular understanding and inclination you have towards such topics. The idea of parents fighting for justice for their now deceased children. While Halahal was about Dr. Shiv taking the wrong route, Trial By Fire has two parents fighting by the legal route. Would that be a correct assessment and why is that?

Thanks for appreciating Halahal. Well, I look for scripts that resonate with my sensibilities of film making. It just so happens that both Halahal and Trial By Fire have the parents' journey towards justice. However, the story, the approach of both these are entirely different. Also, my tracks in Trial By Fire are that of characters of Kishan Pal, fixer (Ashish Vidyarthi), Umesh (Shardul Bharadwaj), Goswamis and parts of Veer Singh (Rajesh Tailang). So, TBF gave me a completely different set of characters and dimensions to work with. In Halahal the approach was to look at it objectively and gradually personalising everything and hence, the gaze becomes subjective in the end where you know the characters' intention. But in TBF, the scene starts on a personal and emotional note and gradually it becomes the experience of the viewer as well. In my characters in TBF, I tried not to judge any of them nor their situations, but just to be observant and create empathy for humans per se.

In my characters in TBF, I tried not to judge any of them nor their situations, but just to be observant and create empathy for humans per se.

-

Q - You have assisted two stalwarts like Dibakar Banerjee and Anurag Kashyap in the past. With the kind of projects you have directed so far, you seemed to have taken from the learning from both of them But more so towards Dibakar, I feel. What would you say about the same and the best learnings you managed to inculcated from both of them?

I have been fortunate to work with both Dibakar and AK when I started off my filmmaking journey. Both are absolutely masters of their craft but both have completely different approaches to film making. Most of my learning has been with AK in terms of craft, process. One exceptional aspect I leant working with AK is to be able to handle even the most challenging situations on the sets. There is a lot of learning each day through the works of film makers from all over the world. Having said that, my style of filmmaking is my own because filmmaking is a very personal journey. If you do not have your own vision, it's difficult and that shows on the screen too. Also, I would like to explore different genres.

Trial By Fire is based on the book Trial by Fire: The Tragic Tale of the Uphaar Fire Tragedy authored by Neelam Krishnamoorthy and Shekhar Krishnamoorthy.