Geetika Narang Abbasi is an independent filmmaker based out of India. With over 15 years of experience, she has directed, produced and edited media content across various formats. Her films have been showcased and awarded at film festivals across the globe. Climate change, society and culture have been some of the recurrent themes in her works.
Yasir Abbasi is a postgraduate in mass communication from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, and has been working as an independent cinematographer since 2002. His work, which spans across different forms, has been shown and awarded at film festivals worldwide. He's also the author of the bestselling book Yeh Un Dinoñ Ki Baat Hai: Urdu Memoirs of Cinema Legends (Bloomsbury, 2018)
On the occassion of “A.K.A.” screening at Red Sea International Film Festival, we speak with them about the reasons of shooting a film about lookalikes, the difficulties the production posed, the characters of these people, and many other topics
A.K.A is screening at Red Sea International Film Festival
How does it feel to screen a movie about a Shah Rukh Khan look-alike, with the real person being in the audience?
Geetika Narang Abbasi: We were joking about it and thought to ourselves it would have been great to have Junior Shah Rukh Khan with us. We actually asked the festival director if they could invite him to come with us for the screening, but little did we know they were going to invite the real Shah Rukh Khan. But having him in the audience feels great. Maybe he could play the part of the look-alike now. (laughs)
Does he acknowledge the presence of his look-alike?
Abbasi: Oh yes. He has seen Junior Shah Rukh Khan in many of his projects, and so he does not only know about him, he appreciates his presence. He is known to be very respectful towards other actors and the crew he is working with, so his relationship to his double is also very good.
In general, why did you decide to make a film about lookalikes?
Abbasi: Me and producer Yasir Abbasi thought this was an interesting phenomenon within the Bollywood world, and thus wanted to do a project about it. There are actually many movies starring these lookalikes of famous stars, which have been doing very well at the box office in India.
We thought this was a fascinating aspect of stardom in India. Even now, as we see the kind of welcome the real Shah Rukh Khan receives at the festival, it feels as if his fame rubs off onto lookalikes. In India, people do not differentiate whether they see the real star or the imitation on the street, because either way they want a picture with him and an autograph.
People like Junior Shah Rukh Khan also go to remote places in India, locations where people live who will most likely never get to meet the real version. So meeting someone imitating him or looking like the real deal on the streets is as close as they ever get to be with the real star. They are very happy to meet people like Junior Shah Rukh Khan.
After having spent so much time with them, would you say that you like them, would you like to hang out with them let's say
Abbasi: Certainly, we hanged around all the time during the shooting. At the beginning of the project, there was a bit of a distance between them and my team, because they come from Bombay, and we come from Delhi. After a while, though, we bonded and our common love for stars eventually bridged the gap between us.
During the shooting process, we spent a lot of time with them in their family homes. Even if we did not have to shoot anything, we would be there to talk to them and just stay for a while.
What we observed was that all of these people, who look like stars, are very down-to-earth and have no hangover from being or pretending to be another person.
Mr. Abbasi, can you tell me a bit about the production of “A.K.A.”?
Yasir Abbasi: It was a challenging project to do, but it was an idea we believed in, and we followed through with it. Perhaps the most important challenge was to get people like Junior Shah Rukh Khan to be themselves in front of the camera, which is hard for them to do, given their predilection for performing and pretending to be someone else. Eventually, they would even open up about their anxieties and insecurities, and also about their identity crisis, which is a fascinating aspect of the project, because these people live on borrowed fame essentially.
To add to that, it was very time-consuming project which we started way back in 2015, and we also had to travel back and forth from Delhi and Bombay. Our shooting was then also interrupted by the lockdown.
Abbasi: The motto of this festival is “film is everything”, which could not be more suitable for a feature such as “A.K.A.”. People such as Junior Shah Rukh Khan are so passionate about the world of movies and cinema, which is the same for me and my team. This passion makes them hopeful and stand for dreams they try to aspire to.
Your film is about official look-alike, but are there also unofficial ones?
Abbasi: Yes. Especially on social media such as Facebook and TikTok there are so many of them, with sometime huge fan bases behind them in India.
