Director Rensil D'Silva unveils the story behind Dial 100

As the Manoj Bajpayee starrer Dial 100 is gearing up for release, Rensil D’Silva shared the inception of the thriller drama.

“About 20 years ago at midnight, I got a phone call from one of my acquaintances who was a very talented, but unemployed, lad. He called me, he was drunk and emotionally high and started venting out, he told me that he doesn’t care anymore about life and wants to die. He started burning the pages of his poetry diary and told me that as soon as he reaches the last page, he would jump off the roof. I never met him so I was trying hard to calm him down and telling him to meet me and to not give up,” Rensil recounted.

“But I know that after a point ‘don’t give up’ is just a phrase because when someone decides to give up his life, it is after a lot of struggle of being unaccepted, feeling unwanted, unloved and ill-treated by society. Even though I moved on in life and started making films, at the back of my mind, that phone call and its psychological after-effect persisted,” the filmmaker revealed.

Eventually, he pitched the idea of a film on how one phone call can change a life to Siddharth P Malhotra. Both of them reached an agreement during the lockdown and Rensil decided to take on some real-life situations.

“During the first lockdown, suicide rates were high, I guess, everywhere. I went to meet Mumbai’s Police Commissioner and he was very encouraging when he learnt that I wanted to make a film based on a real account. He then suggested that I ‘dial 100’; the Mumbai Police department’s helpline number that receives so many calls from people who call before committing suicide or when they are facing domestic violence et al,” Rensil reminisced.

After meeting the team of people who answered the police helpline, he came back and weaved a story around one such tale wherein a phone call changed the life of a person.

“Once I heard some of their accounts, it hit me. I came back home transformed and within a week I finished writing the story. Thankfully, everyone came on board very quickly and within 16 days, we finished shooting. That was in December and our film releases in August. I couldn’t have worked faster than this!” Rensil exclaimed.

Produced by Sony Pictures Films India Dial 100, features Bajpayee, Neena Gupta, Sakshi Tanwar and releases on ZEE5 on August 6.