JD Chakravarthy Reveals Ram Gopal Varma's Alternate Ending for 'Satya'

“I’m still undergoing treatment, and the future is uncertain, even my doctors can’t say. I’m taking each day as it comes, focusing on living fully and doing what I love. As an artist, expression is vital, and I’m currently working on a performance piece that I’ll present at the end of January next year. I’m also promoting Full Plate at festivals, and Dahini is also travelling all across, so things have been happening. When I reflect on cancer, I realize how close it is to all of us and how unpredictable life can be. Even with a healthy lifestyle, I don’t smoke or drink, things happen beyond our control. Sometimes it’s the environment, the air we breathe, the food we eat, or factors we can’t influence.”

“I have no idea, as the film is with Eros, the producers, and I’m not sure what they’re doing with it. Since then, I’ve completed another film, Full Plate, which premiered at Busan, won me the Visionary Director award, opened the Sydney Film Festival, and will play in Dharamshala later this month. Regarding Roam Rome Mein, things went wrong with Eros, and the film remains with them. I feel that festivals should act as distributors too, because there’s a large audience for such films, but traditional distributors, including OTT platforms, act as gatekeepers, often decide what reaches viewers, leaving many such projects unseen.”

“Around 2007–08, while shooting a documentary in Odisha, I overheard a police officer talking on the phone about witch hunting. When I asked him, he said it still happens regularly, three to four cases every month. That struck me. It took years to bring the story to the screen, but by 2025, the urgency remained. Women are still being branded as witches and killed in parts of India, West Bengal, Rajasthan, and even in other countries. No one had really explored this subject in film, and that also motivated me to tell the story.”

“We’re working on it, but the industry has changed a lot. Theatrical distribution remains complex, especially for independent films. We don’t want to release it in just a few theatres, it needs to reach the people whose stories it’s telling. Even OTT platforms now prefer films with superstars, which makes it even more challenging for projects like this.”

“I’m glad Satya was re-released, not just for audiences to experience it its full glory, but because it gave Ramu Ji a chance to reconnect with himself creatively. I’ve been associated with him since his first film, Shiva, and we still talk regularly. I wouldn’t say he lost his way; perhaps he lost some patience along the way. Now, I see the same Ramu Ji we all admired. Recently, he told me the biggest mistake in Satya was killing the character. He believes the story should have ended with him being sent to Dubai along with Vidya, rather than dying. I disagreed, of course, but he feels the ending could have been different. He also said that now nobody will agree with him that the ending should have been different, as the film has become a cult classic.”

“Rajesh and I have been friends for a long time, and he often shares ideas with me. When he brought this script, I was familiar with the issue, but the way he had written it left me no choice but to say yes. He even offered me another project with one of my favorite actresses in Australia, but I chose this because it was a strong and important story that needed to be told.”