Imtiaz Ali is set to commence production on a new Netflix series featuring Aditi Rao Hydari, Avinash Tiwary and Arjun Rampal.
Said to be a contemporary love story with a vintage feeling, it has been titled O Saathi Re. It reunites him with Netflix after their last collaboration Amar Singh Chamkila, the musical biopic starring Diljit Dosanjh and Parineeti Chopra.
As per the official logline, Imtiaz's story is intended as an “evocative exploration of the vintage feeling of love in contemporary times.”
Imtiaz, who will serve as creator, writer and showrunner aside from jointly executive producing it with Mohit Choudhary, said, “O Saathi Re surprised me at every turn of its development. It is a modern story with a vintage heart, an enchanted fairy tale set in the fiasco of metropolitan life. I feel both relieved and excited at having Arif direct the stellar cast of Avinash, Aditi and Arjun — all aces there — and it is the ever-strengthening relationship with Netflix that enabled us to enter the deceptively charming world of O Saathi Re.”
It will have as its director Arif Ali, known for the series She, also on Netflix.
The series will also reunite Netflix with Aditi, who appeared in the platform's original series Heeramandi, directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, last year. The other two actors have also been in properties at the Netflix stable — Tiwary in Sikandar Ka Muqaddar and Rampal in Rana Naidu Season 2.
Recently, Imtiaz said he wants to change the trend of his films picking up with viewers years after their theatrical release. He brought it up when asked about his films being looked at as being ahead of their time.
Comparing his films to the Mahabharata, Ali feels they are as easy to comprehend as that immensely popular story penned by Ved Vyas. "I am not making anything bigger or more complicated than that. If that can be understood, then my movies can also be understood. There is no such thing as rocket science. But, obviously, as a filmmaker and as a storyteller, one needs to try to have that ability that Ved Vyas, Valmiki (Ramayana) or Homer (Greek poet behind Iliad and The Odyssey) and all of these people have had."