Dial 100 director Rensil D'Silva dishes out on inception of Manoj Bajpayee, Neena Gupta's thriller

Rensil D'Silva is back to direction with the upcoming ZEE5 original film Dial 100. The thriller flick features Neena Gupta, Manoj Bajpayee and Sakshi Tanwar in the lead roles. Set against the backdrop of one night, the filmmaker revealed how he came up with the story drawn from a real-life incident that happened with him many years back. 

During an interaction with IANS, Rensil shared that about 20 years ago, he got a phone call at midnight from one of his acquaintances who were unemployed but very talented. The director revealed that he was drunk and emotionally high thus started venting out. The man told him that he doesn't care about life anymore and wants to die. 

Rensil further said, "He started burning the pages of his poetry diary and told me that as soon as he reaches the last poetry, he would jump off the roof. I never met him so I was trying hard to calm him down and telling him to meet me and not to give up."

He went on to say that 'don't give up' just becomes a phrase after a point of time because when someone decides to give up his life, it comes after a lot of struggle of being unaccepted, feeling unwanted, unloved and ill-treated by the society. 

D'Silva added, "Even though I moved on in my life and started making films... in the back of my mind, that phone call, and its after-effect, which was so psychological, remained."

Talking about how much he researched for the film Rensil revealed that during the first lockdown, suicide rates were high. Thus, he went to meet Mumbai Police Commissioner who was very encouraging that he wanted to make a film based on a real account. 

The Police Commissioner then suggested to the director that on the helpline number Dial 100, the team of the Mumbai Police department receives so many calls where people are making calls before committing suicide, facing domestic violence and other issues.

Rensil concluded by revealing that once he heard some of the real phone calls, it hit him hard. Within a week he completed writing the script. He is thankful that the whole team came on board in quick succession and within 16 days they finished shooting for the film. 

Dial 100 is releasing on August 6, 2021.