Why Hasn't Sanya Malhotra's 'Mrs.' Credited Its Technicians Or Jeo Baby In The Trailer?

The trailer of filmmaker Arati Kadav's upcoming feature Mrs., by neat design, goes through a rollercoaster of emotions: the tenderness of getting married, the suffocation of what is expected out of an Indian woman, the pain of dreams getting crushed and a palpable frustration throughout, right up until the video hits two minutes. The next three seconds of the visual unit, however, completely flip the emotions to bewilderment and anger as the end credit slate shows up: It celebrates "teams" from the production house, studio, and streaming platform, but has no mention of any technicians who contributed to the filmmaking process.

"It is a new low for our industry which anyway marginalises technicians and is on a constant drive to invisibilise their efforts. A basic credit to celebrate their work is the least one can do," an artiste associated with the ZEE5 Original told THR India.

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In a baffling move, the makers of Mrs have not even mentioned anywhere in their slate — or in the YouTube description — that the film is an adaptation of The Great Indian Kitchen, the acclaimed 2021 Malayalam film which won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Film, and was also remade in Tamil.

The name of filmmaker Jeo Baby, who wrote and directed the original, cannot be found anywhere on the Mrs. credits as well. "That's just bizarre. Ideally, his name should have been there in the first place, especially when it was announced publicly right from the beginning. Why are we hiding all the people who contributed to making Mrs.?" the artiste added.

The end credit slate of Mrs, starring Sanya Malhotra, first mentions Jio Studios, Baweja Studios, director Aarti Kadav; producers Jyoti Deshpande, Harman Baweja, Pammi Baweja and co-producer Smitha Baliga.

Then, the slate strangely launches into a new category of credits: "Team Jio Studios," which includes its CEO, legal officer, operations head and PR chief, followed by "Team Baweja Studios," which forms its CEO, creative producer, executive producer, legal and accounts head, and then "Team ZEE5", which thanks its content and marketing heads.

There is not a single mention of any of the Heads of Departments who were involved in the making of the film, including writers, editors, the director of photography, music composers, lyricists, production designers, choreographers, casting directors or costume designers among others.

These credits are pushed to the YouTube "description" section on the official page of Jio Studios, but are not even mentioned on the official trailer page of ZEE5.

Screengrab of the trailer slate.

THR India spoke to industry insiders and multiple people associated with Mrs. who revealed on the condition of anonymity that there was an attempt internally to "fix" the issue, but most of the HoDs are rendered powerless due to a non-negotiable clause in their contracts.

THR India also sent questions on the omission of The Great Indian Kitchen's credit as well as the reason for the exclusion of technicians' credit from the end slate to ZEE5, Baweja Studios and Jio Studios. Despite multiple attempts, there was no response.

"This is a recurring problem, which all HoDs have been fighting for," a leading film creative, who has worked on some of the biggest titles of recent times, shared with THR India.

"When we sign our contracts, it comes with a clause that says that the final decision of credit placement and usage of credit rests with the production. This is non-negotiable. As the involvement of platforms and studios keeps increasing, there has been a power shift of sorts where they make a lot of decisions on who deserves to be credited, where the credits will appear, and where they won't."

"That's a difficult fight. Because if you question them, the makers say, 'We don't like the quality of your work.' But who decides the quality of my work? A producer told someone that their credit will be decided after all their deliverables have been submitted. By then, the trailers and teasers had already gone out, so how do you credit someone after everything was already delivered?" the film creative added.

Sanya Malhotra in 'Mrs'

The complete erasure of any credit, a top industry executive told THR India, reflects the "mentality" of wanting to control everything, including the credits.

"This shows that you treat your technicians as workers on hire who should be 'serving' your vision and not as the heads of departments or artists. That these people are on your 'payroll' and you can treat them in whichever way possible, and you are the sole proprietor on whatever is being created."

"Filmmaking is essentially such a collaborative medium, that unless you are bringing that energy of collaboration where there is mutual respect, it will all fall apart. We are not just work for hire, there is an amount of submission to the process of collaboration. When you deny that credit, you deny that respect. That is what has happened here," the source added.

The industry executive, who was taken aback by the "infuriating" credit slate, reasoned that the studio teams have "no creative contribution" to the film and hence do not deserve the credit there, especially when everyone else has been omitted.

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"One completely understands not putting all the names on the slate, but why omit the HoDs? These are people who are co-creators, that translate your vision to the screen. You are merely bankrolling the project, so what's your creative contribution? Why should you be taking credit on that? Why should the end slate be only celebrating that?"

"This is the culture of narcissism that is largely prevalent in our industry, which needs to change. Where you believe that the one who puts in the money is the sole proprietor of what is created," the executive says.

Several industry insiders in key positions shared that the credit fiasco with Mrs. highlights the need for cinema associations to band together and take this up "seriously" at an institutional level, which includes looking into the contracts of technicians, and writers, and making it mandatory that every HoD should be "respected with their credit on the slate or the poster."

"That requires a bigger movement wherein you don't keep a contract like 'Producers Discretion'. The movers and shakers of the industry have to come together to be able to speak on this. When Rohit Shetty made Singham, all the technicians were credited. So clearly it is not an impossible thing to do; you just didn't have the intention of doing it.. which is what we are questioning," the insider shared.

Hours after the THR India report, the official YouTube page of Jio Studios posted a new, shorter trailer, with the entire credit slate at the end. However, there was no response from the makers as to why the credits were missing in the first place.