Enthralling the world of scandalous sports with her documentary, Supriya Sobti Gupta’s debut feature-length directorial, Caught Out: Crime Corruption Cricket is an examination of India’s biggest cricket match-fixing scandal. In an exclusive chat with The Pioneer, Supriya takes us through the journey of making this documentary.
Tejal Sinha
Cricket has undoubtedly been a popular sport. In fact, every boy in the 1990s wished to play for the Indian cricket team. While for many, cricket is not just a sport but a religion, on the other side, many cricketers have been role models. But what if the role models are involved in a scandal that shakes the nation?
This is one of the facets that we get to see in Supriya Sobti Gupta’s directorial documentary Caught Out: Crime Corruption Cricket, which is currently streaming on Netflix. This documentary also marks her directorial debut.
Not for the first time that she’s got such a hard-hitting story to her credit, she’s also forayed into the infotainment space with award-winning and notable productions such as Chef’s Table and Bad Boy Billionaires and recently produced a feature-length documentary titled Mumbai Mafia that is streaming on Netflix.
Though not an ardent cricket fan, Supriya, just like many of us, still watched all of the matches when the Indian cricket team used to be on the field. And so, by default, everyone knew what was happening. Having grown up in the ’90s when cricket was our religion, when the viral scandalous news in the history of Indian cricket broke out, it just shook us all. “While there were murmurs of the scandal that there was match-fixing, this was kind of a wake-up call that told you it’s real and it’s happening.
So, we knew there was a dark period in cricket, and I wanted to shine a light on that period through this film,” shares the former journalist, who is known for telling bold stories that promote public interest journalism and address issues of gender representation in the media.
One of the most important lessons that every journalist is taught is ‘research’. Being a former journalist, it’s no surprise that the auteur used her journalistic skills to effectively document the film. “I’m a former journalist and now a filmmaker, and through my journalism, I’m able to hone my filmmaking skills,” she said, adding that research has been a forte, even in her previous works as a producer.
So, what was the research that went on behind Caught Out? “We did months and months of extensive research, meeting people, various stakeholders—right from talking to cricketers, journalists, various people in the cricket fraternity, commentators, the whole game, and lawyers in order to make sure that we have a rounded story. But we were really happy to see that the heroes of our film came through, and we could give a voice to the unsung heroes of the time and the people who actually unearthed the scandal that we now know as the match-fixing scandal of 2000.”
We were obviously going to ask about the difficulties Supriya faced as a female filmmaker. But little could anyone think of the revelation that she made while chatting with us. Getting the right people on board to speak up and give the viewers a front-row seat in the investigation was surely a challenge, as we could sum up from our talk with the helmer. Did you know Supriya was pregnant at the time she was working on such a male-centric story? Astonished right? So were we when she revealed this to us.
Cricket being a sport that many worship to date, were there any apprehensions for her? Because obviously any negativity around the sport could turn into a huge backlash by the cricket fans. Sounding just like the warrior that she is, she said, “I wouldn’t say that there were fears or apprehensions on that front because cricket is a religion for us and we worship our cricketers, so the one thing we knew is that there is no room for error.
We had to make sure that we followed the line of inquiry, stuck to the facts, and fact-checked all the evidence that we had and everything that we were hearing from our contributors over and over again to ensure that what we put out was really rounded and solid. So it’s a product of great research, lots and lots of fact checks, and lots of interviews with various stakeholders, so we can understand the story in the best matter possible to bring the truth to the viewers. I wouldn’t say there was fear, but there was a lot of thought that went into making this film.”
For such a subject, it is for sure that the helmer had to meet up with several cricketers and get their input. But even after approaching all the cricketers who have been touched upon in the film, “As much as we’ve likely known from the CBI report, I would say the conspiracy of silence was maintained. And unfortunately, we didn’t get that side, but we made all our best efforts to have people represented, and therefore, in the film, if you see, we haven’t interviewed Md. Azharuddin there, but we do have his lawyer telling us what happened, how things have turned out, and why things were cleared for Md. Azharuddin.”
When a journalist becomes a filmmaker, you get to see the three most important aspects of journalism merged with the art of filmmaking: research, access, and archives. By working on such a subject, Supriya successfully combined these aspects in the film. After the research, access comes into the picture. “Access is very important for these films because you need the right people to talk to, people with first-hand experience to tell you what happened. You want somebody who was involved in a particular incident, event, or is a part of the story and can tell you exactly what happened.
Then comes archives; a lot of these retrospective films we do go back in time for throw you back to a certain period that involves some sort of archive. You’ve got to dig out the clips that you’re going to work on throughout your story that help you with your storytelling.
There is no voiceover supporting this style of filmmaking. It’s the characters themselves, the protagonists, that take you on a journey of what happened in that period. So that’s quite a challenge in these sorts of films: you have to cover all the corners and all your subjects in one go because, more often than not, you don’t get a second chance to go back to them. You’ve got to get as much as you can and piece it out into a story.”
Caught Out is more than just a documentary about the scandal; it’s also about changing the film industry. How? The filmmaker says, “Caught Out is a film about a heavily male-dominated subject, but this documentary was helmed by two women as leaders, the producer and director, which is really new and you don’t often get to hear this, especially on a male-centric story. Netflix gave us a chance to tell this male-centric story because they trusted us with it and because of what we brought to the table.
This really marks a change in how we work, especially for women, and especially for me because I was pregnant when I made this film, and it was a big deal because coming out of the film I realised you could be pregnant and put out the best piece of work for yourself, and that’s what caught me off guard. It’s my directorial debut while I was carrying my twins, who are now 10 months old, so it sort of marks a lot of changes in how the world perceives women as filmmakers.”
