INTERVIEW | 13th Director Nishil Sheth On Why SonyLIV Hit Goes Beyond Education Drama
13th director Nishil Sheth says they wanted teacher–student bond to feel real, showing how both grow up, face struggles, and see their relationship evolve.
By Minal Rudra
Published : October 10, 2025 at 5:27 PM IST
When filmmaker Nishil Sheth first read the script of 13th: Some Lessons Aren’t Taught in Classrooms, he knew it wasn’t going to be another formulaic education drama. The SonyLIV original, which released on October 1, has struck a chord with viewers across India. According to Ormax Media, the series ranks fifth among India’s most-watched OTT originals for the week of September 29 to October 5, with an estimated 1.2 million people watching at least one episode.
“It feels really good for something you’ve worked on for so long to finally come out and reach people at this scale,” Nishil shares with ETV Bharat. “You spend months with your team building a world, and when it connects with the audience, it feels very rewarding. The entire crew is thrilled because it’s not just about numbers... it’s about being appreciated for the kind of story we wanted to tell.”
A Bangalore boy who later moved to Mumbai for film school, Nishil made his directorial debut with Bhasmasur, an indie film that premiered at the Mumbai Film Festival (MAMI) and went on to travel to several international festivals. The film earned him Best Director at the New York Indian Film Festival and Vienna Indian Film Festival, along with Best Film and Best Director at the Ottawa Indian Film Festival Awards. He later co-produced Don’t Tell Mother, which premiered at Busan.
With 13th, Nishil steps into a larger, more mainstream space. Created by writer Sameer Mishra and showrunner Abhishek Dhandharia, the SonyLIV series explores the high-pressure world of JEE aspirants and the moral conflicts that shape both students and teachers. “Sameer and Abhishek had already worked on the story and screenplay before I came on board,” Nishil recalls. “Once the script was ready, I joined the team and we started work on pre-production, casting, and finally the shoot. We filmed the show around May and June last year, so it’s been quite a journey.”
For Nishil, 13th was an opportunity to explore mentorship beyond the traditional setup. “We’ve often seen student–teacher stories told from one side,” he says. “Usually, the teacher is the wise mentor and the student is the one learning. But here, we wanted to see what happens to that bond as time passes. When both individuals grow up and face their own struggles, how does that relationship evolve? That was very interesting to me.”
The series takes inspiration from real life. M.T. Sir’s character in the series is based on educator Mohit Tyagi, whose name is familiar to lakhs of JEE aspirants across the country. 13th draws from his world to explore India’s intense exam-prep culture. The title itself refers to the “drop year” after Class 12, when thousands of students take an extra year to prepare for the IIT-JEE examination.
While the series centers on the characters of Ritesh (Paresh Pahuja) and M.T. Sir (Gagan Dev Riar), some viewers felt the story leaned more toward Ritesh’s journey. Nishil agrees that this was deliberate. “Ritesh is the protagonist in the traditional sense because his decisions move the story forward,” he explains. “But I see their dynamic like a tennis match. You need both players for the game to exist. One pushes the other to perform better. On paper and on screen, both were given equal weight, but we experience the world more through Ritesh because that was the nature of the narrative.”
In the series, M.T. Sir is shown as an idealistic and upright teacher. Nishil says this was a conscious choice. “M.T. Sir represents someone trying to stand firm in a system where ethics are often compromised,” he says. “He’s not perfect, but he had to be that guiding light for Ritesh. If he wasn’t that moral anchor, the transformation in Ritesh wouldn’t have the same impact. Of course, there are personal layers to him too, especially in his relationship with his wife, but we wanted the larger arc to keep his idealism intact.”
Coming from an indie background, Nishil admits he was curious to see how his filmmaking approach would adapt to the OTT format. “When you move from independent cinema to a streaming series, there’s always that question of creative adjustment,” he says. “But I didn’t want to carry the baggage of my previous work into this. Every story has its own demands. As a director, you have to adapt. I saw 13th as a chance to expand my grammar, to reach a wider audience without losing my sensibility.”
He sees both indie and OTT storytelling as equally challenging, though in different ways. “In films like Bhasmasur, I could rely a lot on visual storytelling and silence. With 13th, the challenge was to build tension and emotion through dialogue and performance. It’s a more verbal world, and it was exciting to explore that,” he says.
But for all the creative satisfaction, Nishil acknowledges that the space for indie films has shrunk. “When Bhasmasur released, we could still take a small film from festivals to a streaming platform like Netflix. After Covid, the ecosystem has changed. Bigger titles occupy most of the OTT space, and smaller films are finding it tougher to get distribution. It’s become a little more complicated now.”
On the question of whether working with showrunners limits a director’s creative freedom, Nishil is clear. “I wouldn’t call it limiting,” he says thoughtfully. “It’s just that the process is different. In a series, the showrunner and the creator bring the larger vision, and the director’s job is to elevate it, to bring it alive visually. It’s a very collaborative medium. You need to be on the same wavelength for it to work smoothly. On 13th, it was a great experience because we all shared the same intent.”
He pauses and adds, “Of course, when you’re making an indie film, your voice as a director is more dominant because you’re the creator yourself. But even in OTT, there’s space to bring your interpretation and texture to the storytelling.”
As for what’s next, Nishil says he is developing a few projects with his long-time collaborator Raghav. “We’ve written together before, including Bhasmasur,” he says. “Right now, we’re working on two scripts. One is an indie film, and the other we plan to pitch to an OTT platform. I’m open to both formats. At the end of the day, it’s about telling stories that move people.”
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