Exclusive | Anubhuti Kashyap on 'Accused': 'We’re Making Films for Netflix... Not Purely for Audiences, but Also the Algorithm'

In an unusually candid admission about the pressures of streaming-era filmmaking, Anubhuti Kashyap has said that making her Netflix film Accused meant navigating not just audiences but also “an algorithm.”

Speaking about the film’s relentless pacing, Kashyap acknowledged that the creative choices were deeply shaped by contemporary viewing behaviour. “It’s a tricky question because sometimes you do want to give the audience a breather — it depends on the kind of film,” she said. “With this one, we wanted to tell a very engaging story, so we went at it relentlessly.”

The filmmaker described a process driven by constant feedback loops. “I kept taking very specific notes and showing the film at different stages to different people — asking, were you feeling relaxed here? Were you getting out of the film at this point?” she explained. “I would take those notes and work on them so that you don’t really get breathing space.”

Kashyap was clear that the decision was strategic rather than purely aesthetic. “Also, I’m trying to cater to today’s audience and their patience — or lack of it. We call it shrinking attention. So we kept it tight, so they don’t get any excuse to pause, look away, or go make tea.” But the bigger tension, she suggested, lay elsewhere: in the realities of streaming economics.

“Today, we’re making films for Netflix — not purely for audiences, but also for an algorithm,” Kashyap told The Hollywood Reporter India.

The concern, she admitted, was always present. “It was always at the back of my mind: if it’s too much tension, people might get exhausted and the payoff might not feel big enough. We discussed this a lot with the stakeholders and eventually arrived at the final call — to go this way rather than another.”

When Kashyap was asked about the notable restraint in depicting physical intimacy between the film’s central couple — played by Konkona Sen Sharma and Pratibha Ranta, who portray wives Dr. Geetika and Dr. Meera — the rationale once again circled back to the same tightrope: keeping viewers engaged without risking drop-off.

“You’re right — that was a political choice,” Kashyap said. “Even I would like to see more intimacy in queer stories. But in India, we’re not yet at that stage.” Instead, she framed the decision as incrementalism. “Instead of jumping straight to the next step, we thought this could be an intermediate step — to normalise the relationship without creating discomfort for Indian audiences,” Kashyap said.

Read alongside her earlier admission about balancing storytelling with platform metrics, the choice also reflects the algorithm anxiety shaping streaming-era decisions — the fear that pushing too far, too fast might cost viewership. Her reasoning points to a persistent hesitation that continues to shadow queer representation in mainstream Indian storytelling — even in 2026, nearly eight years after the Supreme Court of India read down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in 2018.

“The idea was: let people first accept queer relationships as normal. Then they’ll be ready for the next step,” Kashyap said. “We want more and more people to accept queer relationships. That was purely the intention,” she concluded.