In a cinematic landscape increasingly drawn to true events, the question of how much creative liberty is too much is one that filmmakers often grapple with. From retelling political assassinations and hijackings to exploring biopics, storytelling rooted in real-life events must strike a careful balance between staying authentic and keeping the audience engaged.
The director’s dilemma: Sensitivity over sensationalism
Filmmaker Nagesh Kukunoor, who has never hesitated from experimenting with his work, recently dipped his toes in the genre of true crime drama. With his latest release – ‘The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination‘ he has presented a seven-episode long investigative drama based on the murder of an ex-Prime Minister. Highlighting how he managed to strike a balance between creative liberty and authenticity of the story, Nagesh Kukunoor, in an exclusive conversation with us, shared, “A lot of the people of my generation remember it (the assassination) very clearly. So, you want to handle it with the utmost sensitivity and not sensationalize things.” “For me, what is exciting about the project is it never taps into any of the political connections. What it deals with is a pure police procedural, a crime thriller, if you will. And that’s what got me excited about the project in the first place. And it’s a book, 90 Days, literally, once we chose to adapt it, it plays out like a thriller. And even though people are familiar with it, I guarantee that when you actually see the jaw’s going to be on the floor at several points, saying, Oh my God, did that really happen?”
The art of dramatization: Writing what wasn’t said
Shedding light on how drama brings the real on reel, the director added, “Now where we have to take creative liberty is, let’s say, I’m giving a random example. Let’s say a couple of people met, a decision was taken, and then an event happened. This is what would have been reported by the journalists during that period. Now, if we choose to dramatize that, I’m going to have to write a scene. I’m going to have the characters say certain things. And then I’m going to have it actually play out.” “Now, I wasn’t there, so how would I know exactly what words were said, right? But in writing the dialogues, and I had two co-writers with me, we made sure that we handled it with as much sensitivity as possible to make sure that we were true to the characters of the people we were portraying. So I would like to think that we did a solid job. We didn’t point fingers. We just let the events play out as they did. We handled both sides with equal sensitivity.“
Another noted film personality who weighed in on the subject is Anupam Kher. He has been a part of several movies that are based on real events. We got in touch with him when his ‘IB71’was about to hit the big screens.Inspired by true events, ‘IB 71’ is an espionage thriller set against the backdrop of the Indo-Pak war of 1971. It follows the story of an Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer, who uncovers a sinister plot by Pakistan and China to launch a joint attack on India within ten days.Speaking on the delicate tightrope between truth and cinematic storytelling, Anupam Kher, in context to ‘IB71’ specifically mentioned, “As far as the incident is concerned, there is not much cinematic liberty taken. But of course, because jab incident hua tha toh background score nahi chalta hai. Yeh film mein background score hai. And thodi-thodi cinematic liberty is taken with any, even when you make biopics. You do make it because it’s an experience you want to give to the audience. It’s a ten-day film that has to come in about two hours of cinema. But the feel of the film, the incidents of the film, what actually happened, how we sort of conned ISI, and how our agents went there, stayed in a hotel, etc. That is absolutely true.”
The grey zone: where liberty becomes a risk
There is a limit, however, to how filmmakers can stretch the truth. In legal biopics or political thrillers, dramatization can lead to controversy, defamation cases, or political backlash. Even well-researched films. That’s where filmmaker Nagesh’s earlier quote becomes relevant – “We handled both sides with equal sensitivity.”
Audience decoding fact from fiction
With the rise of true-crime documentaries and biographical cinema, audiences now bear a responsibility too. The line between truth and creative liberty often blurs unless viewers make the effort to research what was real and what was invented for screen impact.
