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"Two years from the time I started researching the film up to its release… I was on the job every single day.” That is how long screenwriter and director Sooni Taraporevala’s second directorial venture Hindi-English Yeh Ballet was in the making, she told Parsiana in a telephonic conversation on March 7, 2020. A Siddharth Roy Kapur production, the film was released on February 21 on streaming platform Netflix. The one-hour-57-minute movie tells the true story of two Bombay boys, Manish Chauhan and Amiruddin Shah (Nishu and Asif in the movie) from modest backgrounds who overcome family opposition on religious and economic grounds to gain admission to Oregon Ballet Theater School, USA — egged on, nurtured and sometimes harangued by a crotchety Israeli tutor with anger management issues played by English actor Julian Sands.
The initial friction between the protagonists, their friendships and rivalries with other dancers, the reluctant bonding between them and their final performance witnessed by the US consul general who facilitates their visa processing to enable them to study ballet in her country, form the bulk of the film. Peppered with Bombay’s street lingo, thrown in are gritty scenes of the city’s slums, nods to Hindu-Muslim unity, a sickly but supportive sister, budding romances and four songs. The passing reference in the movie to the upcoming Coastal Road and how it would affect the lives of the communities in the areas it would pass through comes up for discussion in Taraporevala’s interview. The Padma Shri awardee said  she feels very strongly about it but could not do much to voice her protest due to her preoccupation with the movie. Taraporevala told The Hindu (TH) on March 1, "Whenever it’s a story about the city, for me, at least, Bombay is as much a character.”
Of choreographer Shiamak Davar, the director said, "He always had my back…he loaned the dancers from his school for the chorus scenes…choreographed the Diwali song… provided costumes…and provided any other support I needed.” Jim Sarbh plays the somewhat opportunistic owner of Mumbai Dance Academy who has a change of heart towards Nishu and Asif towards the end of the film. Sohrab Ardeshir plays a small role as a lawyer who attempts to help the boys with their visas; lawyer and musician Zarir Marfatia plays an even smaller role as a student of the Academy. Seasoned actor Boman Irani appears as himself in a dance reality show sequence, with a few words of wisdom on hard work for Nishu. Taraporevala’s son Jahan Bativala contributed his on-set editing skills to the movie while daughter Iyanah was director (second unit). 

 

 

 

In 2017, Taraporevala had directed a 15-minute virtual reality (VR) documentary, also called Yeh Ballet, on the dreams of Chauhan (then 21) and 15-year-old Shah who excel in the dance form (see "Bombay ballet boys’ virtual reality,” Parsiana, July 21, 2017). A VR film is shot with about four to 12 cameras, which gives the viewer the feeling that he is actually on the set or the spot where the movie is being filmed. That experience did not "help technically (while directing the current movie)… but had it not been for that documentary, I would never have met the lads… I stayed in touch with them and got to know them,” the director said. "They have imbibed (the dance form) so deeply and soulfully… That amazement at their achievement never left me,” Taraporevala told TH. The movie is on a "much larger scale” than the 2017 documentary, she said. "We even had vanity vans!”
For the Netflix movie, with Chauhan’s advanced study of the dance form, Taraporevala said, "I had to tell him to think of the days when he was new to ballet” to give authenticity to the earlier parts of the movie where he is depicted as a novice.
As Shah is currently undergoing training at the Royal Ballet School in the UK and was therefore unavailable for the 44-day shoot, the production team located 19-year-old dancer Achintya Bose, who has experience in contemporary and jazz dance forms. "I originally thought that both Manish and Amiruddin would be available for the film… it was a very tall order to find someone to replace Amir,” she said. Casting director Tess Joseph "scoured ballet schools up and down the country… Male ballet dancers are in short supply.” Taraporevala says she "fell in love with his look” the moment she saw Bose perform at Danceworx Academy. "I asked Yehuda Ma’or (the real life teacher who coached Chauhan and Shah) if Achintya would match up… We cast him and prayed very hard,” she said. A six-month stint of training with choreographer and dancer Cindy Jourdain every afternoon followed, in parallel with Bose practicing his break dancing and b-boying (dance forms) at a park in Malad. Of Jourdain, a ballerina who has danced for both the English National Ballet and the Royal Ballet Company in London, Taraporevala says that "she understood perfectly what was required.”
In spite of the "tough locations” they shot at, Taraporevala appreciated her "really fantastic crew,” a few of whom had worked with her on her first directorial venture Little Zizou back in 2008. Though the movie begins with lyrical views of Bombay’s Mahim bay spanned by the Sea Link, it quickly moves to the slums around Worli Fort where Asif lives and practices his dancing. Nishu’s home in the movie was across the Mahim bay, in Bandra. All the scenes were shot at real locations, except the "Mumbai Dance Academy,” where the actors schooled and performed.
Asked if the star of the movie was ballet as a dance form, the city or the grit of the boys, she replied, "I want viewers to make their own decision.”