Zoya Akhtar: 'Made in Heaven' more a satire on Indian weddings than marriage

Zoya Akhtar says Made in Heaven is more of a satire on the "hoopla" around weddings in India than the institution of marriage. Zoya, who is having a great run at the movies with the box office and critical success of Gully Boy, has co-created Amazon Prime Video's latest India original with longtime collaborator Reema Kagti.

Made in Heaven had its world premiere at MAMI Tuesday, which was followed by a Q&A session. "It's not as much a satire on marriages as it is on weddings because, in India, people give prominence to your wedding day, there's a lot of projection involved. It can be a beautiful and a sacred union if you are with the person you want to spend your life," she said.

"But I don't understand the hoopla around it. It's the behind the scenes for the event that we borrow money for, go into debt... It's more that than the actual marriage," she added. The drama reflects the lives of upscale modern India, narrated through the eyes of two wedding planners, set against the backdrop of quintessential Indian weddings in Delhi.

It stars Arjun Mathur, Sobhita Dhulipala, Jim Sarbh, Kalki Koechlin, Shashank Arora, and Shivani Raghuvanshi. The series is directed by Zoya, Nitya Mehra, Alankrita Shrivastava, and Prashant Nair.  Shrivastava said working on a series is far "more collaborative" than a film, though at the end of the day it is all about "telling a story to the best of your ability.''

''With a film, the onus is on the director but with a series, it's the creators, the writers, the showrunner and all the directors, everybody coming together. That makes it very different. "Also, I feel you can delve deeper into characters. You have much more time and space. That's quite exciting. You also have to shoot more in the same amount of time. That's also slightly different but if you love telling stories, it doesn't really matter what format it is," the Lipstick Under My Burkha director said. 

Javed Akhtar, Shabana Azmi and Dipti Naval also attended the event. Produced by Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar, the upcoming series starts streaming across 200 countries and territories on March 8.