Om Raut shares how he mounts stories from Maharashtra for national, international audience

Director-producer Om Raut, whose production 'Inspector Zende' is set to release on OTT next month, has spoken about his knack for showcasing historical characters from Maharashtra and how he mounts them for the national or international audience.

The director-producer spoke with IANS recently at his office in Mumbai and shared that his aim is to tell grassroots stories.

He told IANS, "I want to tell the grassroots stories. I want to tell the stories that are rooted deeply into our culture. I want to tell the stories that are about Indian heroes or Indian superheroes or Indian characters, male or female, doesn't matter. The stories that we have in our culture, the stories that we have in our great history of Bharat is something that I would like to tell. And because I come from Maharashtra, these are the stories that I actually grew up with. These are the stories that were told to me by my grandparents, by my parents, my father and my mother."

He further mentioned, "So, they have a very deep impact on you while growing up. And to be honest, whatever I have understood, I am only trying to recreate that into cinema. When it comes to Marathi, I am an extremely proud Marathi boy. Whatever are the stories of our culture, and that is why I have an attraction towards Marathi culture and great Marathi personalities in our history."

"There is so much contribution of all these people towards building the nation that we have today. The nation that we have today is a tremendous contribution of all these forces that have come to us, you know, over a period, even pre-independence also, post-independence also," he added.

'Inspector Zende' is set to release on September 5, 2025.