Director Soumendra Padhi spills the beans on what went into the making of Netflix’s Jamtara

MUMBAI: National-award winner Soumendra Padhi has been widely recognized for his directorial debut Budhia Singh-Born to Run. The visionary director, will soon be bringing to light, a series inspired by true incidents, titled Jamtara-Sabka Number Ayega on Netflix. Jamtara is the story of young, ambitious and volatile people who have the world before them. Sunny along with his older cousin, Rocky, and their bunch of friends has been successfully running the phishing scam and duping people without coming into the limelight even once. Life is great, money is flowing freely and they are the kings of their worlds. Everything is ideal until a news report catapults the nondescript village and the phishing hub it had become to public attention, and suddenly everyone wanted a piece of the pie. 

Jamtara is a story that delves deep into the phishing crime and digital crime rate that was taking shape in India. A small sleepy town in Jharkhand, Jamtara is known to be the root of majority of the cybercrimes that take place. The director, Soumendra wanted to set the tone and narrative of his  story right and to do so, he and his team had to do extensive research and pay attention to the most intricate details. The team visited Jamtara for a thorough recce and realised that this was a common, prevalent yet bloodshed-less crime.  

Talking about the making of this series, director Soumendra Padhi said, “Jamtara had never been explored before, so there was no reference point that we had. Whatever happens in the series, happened in Jamtara, so it all originates from there. We mainly faced creative challenges and did eventually overcome them. My DOP visited Jamtara with me and that helped us get a great sense of the narrative. When we actually visited Jamtara and we would sneak inside the villages with police help because we couldn't go alone. That was an extensive recce and it helped us majorly to shape the look and colour of the series. We have tried to retain the authenticity and hope audiences enjoy this unique and entertaining take on the phishing scam. Moreover, we are happy that the series will be released on Netflix because it gives such local stories an opportunity to be viewed in 190 countries.”  

Jamtara - Sabka Number Ayega  hit the service on 10th January, 2020!