Anurag Kashyap blasts Netflix India as ‘dishonest, morally corrupt’, praises ‘Adolescence’

Anurag Kashyap praises Netflix's Adolescence miniseries while criticizing Netflix India's leadership and content strategy.

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap has heaped praise on Netflix’s smash hit miniseries Adolescence while blasting the streamer’s India division as a “totally opposite s**tshow”. On Instagram, Kashyap shared a post by Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos praising Adolescence. The series has garnered acclaim globally for its haunting narrative of a 13-year-old teenager accused of murdering his schoolmate.

“I am numb and envious and jealous that someone can go and make that,” Kashyap wrote, commending the performances of child actor Owen Cooper and English star Stephen Graham, who has also co-created and co-written the series.

Kashyap, who directed Sacred Games for Netflix but whose second series Maximum City was cancelled by the platform, then expressed his ‘grouse’ with the current leadership and content strategy at Netflix India in the comments section.

“Now coming to my envy and jealousy. Ted sarandos recently put a post where he says - “every once and awhile one comes along that pushes into brand new territories, defies the limits of creativity and features career defining performances. “. And I hope he means it . Because his on Netflix.in is a totally opposite shitshow . If they were pitched this, most probably they would have rejected it or turned it into a 90 minute film (that too seems like an impossibility because it doesn’t have an ending that is black and white).”

Kashyap revealed he has tried collaborating with Netflix twice post Sacred Games but was met with apathy and ‘dumbness’. He slammed the current leadership at Netflix India as ‘morally corrupt’.

“Having gone through twice with them post Sacred Games and dealing with total lack of empathy , courage and dumbness mixed with immense insecurity of the series head and the team that keeps getting fired. It frustrates me . How do we ever create something so powerful and honest with a bunch of most dishonest and morally corrupt @netflix.in backed so strongly by the boss in LA. This hypocrisy of Ted and Bella via a vis the indian market of 1.4 billion people , where there only interest is increase in subscriptions and nothing else. There was a time when Eric Barmack would reach out on Facebook to create something with Netflix to now where they send you a shot show like “saare jahan se achcha “ - which wasn’t even written properly and half baked . Which by the way has already changed directors and been shot twice (inevitably) . It makes me frustrated , jealous of shows like Adolesence and envious and hopeless. I hope they learn from the reception of it and realise that all the best things indian netflix does is mostly either acquired (Delhi Crime, Black warrant) or the ones they least believed in ( kohrra , trial by fire ) . Fingers crossed for a better future.”

In a recent interview with The Hindu, Kashyap detailed his frustration with the current streaming landscape in India, calling their feedback “too insecure and algorithm-based”.