AK vs AK

At a film premiere the director Anurag Kashyap argues with the actor Anil Kapoor and throws tea in his face. In revenge he abducts Kapoor's daughter and makes an offer: find her within ten hours and I will film it. Kapoor has no choice but to agree. The subject is not the abduction but a star left without a camera crew. Kapoor spends the film running without a unit, without lighting, without make-up; Kashyap is using him not as an actor but as material, and that is where the tension lies. The form is one night and handheld. Most of the footage is shot on the camera Kashyap carries, built to feel like real time; the streets and crowds are real. The strange thing about the production is the casting. Anil Kapoor and Anurag Kashyap play themselves and both use their own public images as material; Sonam Kapoor, who plays the abducted daughter, is his actual daughter. It was released on Netflix and was considered unusual as a genre proposition in India. Vikramaditya Motwane directs. Who it is for: viewers who like experimental work mixing fiction with reality and Indian independent cinema. Who it is not for: anyone who does not know the two men; most of the jokes and the tension rest on their real careers.