Sahil Sangha & Applause Entertainment – A creative collaboration extraordinaire

With its gripping plot, Applause Entertainment’s series, ‘Kafas’, has received favourable reviews from both critics and viewers. Directed by Sahil Sangha, ‘Kafas’ started streaming on SonyLIV from June 23, 2023. This is Sangha’s second collaboration with Applause Entertainment after ‘Mind The Malhotras’.

‘Kafas’ has a distinctive ensemble cast that includes Mona Singh, Sharman Joshi, Zarina Wahab, Vivan Bhatena and Araham Sawant. ‘Kafas’ follows the journey of a middle-class family as they celebrate their son’s life-changing career opportunity until a haunting reality hits them, leaving them to navigate the grounds of morality and power. The story revolves around an investigation into the world of dark money, capturing the complexities of human nature and the price we pay for our decisions.

In conversation with Adgully, Deepak Segal, Chief Creative Officer, Applause Entertainment, and Sahil Sangha, producer and writer, known for ‘Love Breakups Zindagi’ (2011), ‘Mind the Malhotras’ (2019) and ‘Kafas’ (2023), speak about their journey of collaboration for ‘Kafas’ and ‘Mind the Malhotras’, creative ideation, and more. 

How has the ‘Kafas’ journey been? What sprang to mind as soon as you saw the script?

Sahil Sangha: The journey has been very interesting and rewarding. We are all very happy with the response that ‘Kafas’ is generating. People are starting to press play and then most messages we are getting is when they finish the whole series. This is my third outing in three years or four years, including the pandemic, with all the most wonderful people at Applause Entertainment. With them, it’s always smooth sailing as we align so well. I still remember the first day that I sat with the Deepak and he took me through this and he said, ‘yeah, this is what you want you to do next’. We had just come out of a sitcom – ‘Mind The Malhotras’ Season 2 – and genre wise ‘Kafas’ was a big difference. I am just so happy to have received that call, so as always my first thanks is to everyone at Applause, I am always happy to be working with them and hopefully we will continue to create interesting stories.

What are some of the most important abilities and traits that you seek in a collaborator?

Deepak Segal: Sahil and I have worked together earlier long back on our film and at that point I noticed that Sahil does enjoy human relationships, because that was also a very complex show with many people. When we were doing ‘Mind The Malhotras’, Sameer said ‘let’s get somebody new and fresh to do this one’ and then we thought why not Sahil. We have a little trust factor with Sahil, whatever he gives us is not going to be put down, so, that’s why we keep going back to him and we will continue to go back.

How was your working relationship with Applause Entertainment? What upcoming joint projects are you working on?

Sahil Sangha: My relationship with Applause has always been wonderful. I think my first meeting with the Deepak was in 2009 or 2010. The collaboration is a long journey. I have known them for a very long time. They are wonderful people and what’s great is that they are very generous with their insight with regard to content. If you look at what Applause Entertainment stands for and what they are doing – it is the singular production studio in this country that is working with so many varied talents across so many varied subjects. And because they are generous with their insight, they are not overbearing. But they are very involved and they listen to every script. It is one thing to credit the director and his team for their efforts, but hats off to Applause because they always remind us about the end goal and keeping our eye on the ball, so that we remain very streamlined.

I value that collaborative energy that we have, because their feedback means everything to me. It’s always wonderful for me to work with them. We are looking to find the next subject material that really excites us and we’ll start immediately and hopefully be sitting in front of you again very soon.