10 Bollywood Anthologies That Were Helmed By Multiple Directors
Posted On: 04 Apr 2022 | Last Updated : 19 Oct 2022 | Views : 4.k
An anthology is a single film consisting of multiple short stories, and each is distinguished from one another. Most of the time, each of these short stories, or short films is directed by a different director. The concept wasn’t too popular in Bollywood, until the late 2000s. While a three-hour movie could be lengthy, monotonous, and boring, the anthology movie keeps the audience hooked by presenting numerous short movies to them. Anthology movies are surely the tricky ones, as the editors have to edit these various short stories into feature-length movies. Thus, most of the anthologies fail to entertain the audience, as bad editing could confuse the viewers more than entertain them. However, many times visionary and top filmmakers come together to direct the short stories to be put together, that just simply multiplies the amusement for the cine-goers. Here, we present 10 Bollywood Anthologies directed by multiple directors. Stay tuned for more such Bollywood-related updates, articles, topics, and trivia on movies and celebrities.
1. Darna Zaroori Hai (2006) – 6 Directors
The 2006 horror anthology film Darna Zaroori Hai is the sequel of anthology film Darna Mana Hai (2003), and was the first multi-directed anthology movie of Bollywood. It interweaves six stories in a film and each segment is directed by a different director. The six stories are as follows:
● Opening Story (Directed by Sajid Khan): A middle aged man goes to watch a late-night show of a horror movie and despite his mother’s warnings takes the graveyard shortcut to return to home only to undergo a shock.
● Story 1 – Imaginary Ghost (Directed by Ram Gopal Varma): An elderly professor of Biotechnology, while tutoring one of his students, keeps on pointing out at something or someone telling him about the presence of ghosts. However, things take a turn when the student learns the truth.
● Story 2 – Spirits Do Come (Directed by Prawaal Raman): A married couple plans to play a prank on a man after their failed attempt to evocate spirit, but they are shocked when a spirit finally pays a visit.
● Story 3 – Accidents Are Never Predicted (Directed by Vivek Shah): A family is visited by an insurance agent who keeps warning them about the unpredicted accidents, but they don’t take him seriously until they see one themselves.
● Story 4 – Ghostly Audition (Directed by Jiji Philip): A film director decides to make a horror movie, and meets a young woman, who is determined to impress him with her acting skills.
● Story 5 – A Bride’s Revenge (Directed by J. D. Chakravarthy): The spirit of a young woman returns to take revenge from her husband and his parents, who burned her to death.
● Story 6 – The Ending (Directed by Manish Gupta): All the stories were narrated by an old woman to five children, and one by one all the children die after suffering a heart attack because of the shock.
2. Dus Kahaniyaan (2007) – 6 Directors
Comprising ten short stories, Dus Kahaniyaan talks about a wide range of subjects with different stories each helmed by a different director thus becoming one of Bollywood’s anthology movies with multiple directors. The ten stories include:
● Matrimony (Directed by Sanjay Gupta): The bored wife of an MNC vice president has an extramarital affair with an army officer. However, things take a turn when she finds out about her husband’s affair but couldn’t confront him because of her lies.
● High on the Highway (Directed by Hansal Mehta): Two college lovers, high on drugs, encounter goons on their way, who kidnap the girl. This leaves the other one depressed for his incompetence to save his lover.
● Pooranmasi (Directed by Meghna Gulzar): A woman has a lover, who waits outside her house every full moon night, but she is married to someone else. Years later, her daughter gets engaged and the same night she decides to finally meet her lover.
● Strangers in the Night (Directed by Sanjay Gupta): Wife narrates one of her past experiences to her husband, where she tricks one of the rioters of religious riots to save a child.
● Zahir (Directed by Sanjay Gupta): An intoxicated man rapes the girl who rejected him early, but is left in shock, when he learns the true reason of her rejection.
● Lovedale (Directed by Jasmeet Dhodi): A young lady travels by train to go to her home to get engaged. She encounters an elderly lady, who hands her an earring and vanishes. She tries to search her and the search leads her to meet a man, who later becomes her lover.
● Sex on the Beach (Directed by Apoorva Lakhia): A spirit of the woman returns and follows the man who could help her fulfil her unfulfilled wishes.
● Rice Plate (Directed by Rohit Roy): A staunch Hindu woman, who dislikes Muslims, misses her train, and while waiting she comes across a Muslim man and the following events makes her have a change of heart.
● Gubbare (Directed by Sanjay Gupta): A married couple finds some or the other reason to quarrel, until the wife runs into an old man, who gives her a life changing lesson.
● Rise & Fall (Directed by Sanjay Gupta): Two criminal leaders and childhood friends, who have killed people since childhood to protect one another, but things change when both of their lives are in danger.
3. Mumbai Cutting (2010) – 11 Directors
Mumbai Cutting, the anthology of eleven short stories, narrates different stories of Mumbai-based people, which talks about the non-glamorous side of the film city. The eleven stories are:
● Anjane Dost (Directed by Jahnu Barua)
● Bombay Mumbai Same Shit (Directed by Rahul Dholakia)
● Urge (Directed by Rituparno Ghosh)
● 10 Minutes (Directed by Shashanka Ghosh)
● And it Rained (Directed by Manish Jha)
● Pramod Bhai 23 (Directed by Anurag Kashyap)
● The Ball (Directed by Sudhir Mishra)
● Jo Palti Nahin (Directed by Ruchi Narain)
● Bombay High (Directed by Ayush Rana)
● Parcel (Directed by Revathi)
● Hero (Directed by Kundan Shah)
4. The Last Act (2012) – 12 Directors
Written by filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, the thriller anthology film The Last Act comprises of 12 short stories each directed by a different director, who are – Asmit Pathare, Anurag Kashyap, Goswami Anurag, Nitin Bhardwaj, Nijo Jonson, Jaggannathan Krishnan, Nijo Rohit, Tathagata Singh, Nitye Sood, Himanshu Tyagi, Kabir Singh Chowdhry and Rohin Venkatesan.
The movie follows the story of a psychopath killer, who has left 12 clues around the corpse, and these clues could be traced in different cities. Thus, each clue is constructed into a short film of around 10 minutes, which solves one piece of the puzzle consisting of 12 different pieces.
5. Bombay Talkies (2013) – 4 Directors
The 2013 anthology film Bombay Talkies comprises of 4 short films. The film was released on the 100th anniversary of Indian cinema, and celebrates the occasion and the beginning of a new era in Hindi Cinema. The four short films are as follows:
● Ajeeb Dastaan Hai Yeh (Directed by Karan Johar): A young gay man meets a married couple, and is sure about the husband being a gay. He constantly feels the connection with the married man and is determined to help him come out of the closet too.
● Star (Directed by Dibakar Banerjee): A struggling actor with no money is waiting for his one big break. He finally gets a small role in a movie, but is disappointed with his role. It is then he meets the spirit of his mentor, who explains to him that no role is small or insignificant.
● Sheila Ki Jawaani (Directed by Zoya Akhtar): A 12-year-old boy is a huge Katrina Kaif fan and loves dancing to ‘Sheila Ki Jawaani’. However, his father wants him to be masculine and focus on his football game. He decides to prove his father wrong by organizing a small event where he dances to his favourite tunes and is praised by all.
● Murabba (Directed by Anurag Kashyap): A man from a small city travels to Mumbai to fulfil his ailing father’s wish to meet the superstar Amitabh Bachchan and feed him homemade ‘murabba’ and bring the remaining back for his father.
6. Shuruaat Ka Interval (2014) – 8 Directors
Shuruaat Ka Interval is an anthology film that comprises eight segments, each directed by a different director, with a common central theme, which is ‘Interval’. The eight short stories are as follows:
● Bubble and Stars (Directed by Rukshana Tabassum)
● The Gatekeeper (Directed by Aarti S. Bagdi)
● August (Directed by Shishir Jha)
● Ayan (Directed by Amrit Raj Gupta)
● Interval 3D (Directed by Palash Vaswani)
● No Exit (Directed by Ankit Tripathi)
● Final Interval (Directed by Atanu Mukherjee)
● The Last Audition (Directed by Krishan Hooda)
7. Chaar Cutting (2015) – 4 Directors
The 2015 anthology film Chaar Cutting is the collaboration work of four directors. The stories would make you cry, laugh and go into deep thoughts. The film captures the wide range of human emotions with the four short films, which are as follows:
● Manila Running (Directed by Anuj Gulati)
● Bawri (Directed by Vivek Soni)
● Skin Deep (Directed by Hardik Mehta)
● Blouse (Directed by Vijayeta Kumar)
8. X: Past is Present (2015) – 11 Directors
The team of eleven directors collaborated for the 2015 anthology feature film with eleven short films, each directed by a different director. They are as follows:
● Past is Present (Directed by Sudhish Kamath)
● 17 Presents (Directed by Hemant Gaba)
● Oysters (Directed by Anu Menon)
● Biryani (Directed by Rajshree Ojha)
● 8 to 8 (Directed by Pratim D. Gupta)
● Ice Maid (Directed by Q)
● Fin (Directed by Sandeep Mohan)
● Audition (Directed by Abhinav Shiv Tiwari)
● Yaadein (Directed by Suparn Verma)
● Knot (Directed by Raja Sen)
● Summer Holiday (Directed by Nalan Kumarasamy)
9. Shor Se Shuruaat (2016) – 7 Directors
The 2016 feature film Shor Se Shuruaat is the collaborative work of seven directors. This anthology film consists of seven short films that explore the same central theme, which is ‘shor’ (noise) in the narrative and interpretations. Each of the seven short films is directed by a different director – Rahul V. Chittella, Amira Bhargava, Annie Zaidi, Pratik Rajen Kothari, Supriya Sharma, Arunima Sharma and Satish Raj Kasireddi.
10. Shuruaat Ka Twist (2019) – 6 Directors
Shuruaat Ka Twist is the anthology of six short films, which have the same central theme ‘twists in one’s life’. The six segments are somehow inter-related, yet very different from one another, they are as follows:
● Adi Sonal (Directed by Heena Dsouza)
● Gutthi (Directed by Avalokita Dutt)
● Tap Tap (Directed by Praveen Fernandes)
● Khauff (Directed by Hanish Kalia)
● Bhakar Calling (Directed by Sanjiv Kishinchandani)
● Guddu (Directed by Gaurav Mehra)
