Netflix India has unveiled the first trailer for Cargo, two days before its release. Directed by Arati Kadav, the science-fiction film stars Vikrant Massey and Shweta Tripathi in lead roles.
Set almost entirely aboard a spaceship, the film focusses on Vikrant’s character, a ‘rakshasa’ named Prahastha, whose job it is to prepare recently deceased people for reincarnation. After several years performing his duties aboard the spaceship, an assistant named Yuvishka is sent to help him out.
The trailer offers a glimpse of the film’s idiosyncratic tone and some of the ideas that it tackles. It is an exploration of Eastern concepts such as rebirth, through the lens of a Hollywoodized genre such as sci-fi. In an interview to HuffPost, Arati said that the genre hasn’t really been explored in India. “Sci-fi has had a lot of false starts in the country. So I wanted to make something so local that everyone in India could relate to it. I wanted to infuse the stories we all heard growing up into a science fiction narrative, and that’s how I arrived here,” she said.
She also said that the filmmaking process wasn’t without its obstacles, but she surrounded herself with trusted collaborators. “I didn’t pitch this film to anyone. I just went to the people that I trusted and who trusted me and told them that I was working on a project. They knew me well enough to realize I wasn’t kidding around and instantly agreed to come aboard. That’s when I revealed the concept of Cargo to them. So, almost everyone involved in the creative team is a first timer, like me. We have a first time cinematographer, VFX artist, editor, music producer, and in a way, even the producers,” she said.
Cargo is co-produced by Anurag Kashyap and with Vikramaditya Motwane serving as executive producer. The film played at the SXSW and MAMI film festivals. It is slated for a September 9 release.
