Director of Bajrangi Bhaijan Kabir Khan talks to TIDU
By Manju Mittal
Bajrangi Bhaijan became one of the biggest box office success in 2015. For both Salman Khan and the director of the film Kabir Khan. Bajrangi Bhaijan was screened at the Indian Panorama section at the 46th edition of the International film festival of India ( IFFI ) in Goa late last year. Kabir who set foot in Bollywood Industry in 2006 with “Kabul Express”, spun magic with his heart touching story of a mute Pakistani girl and a Hindu man with his 2015 directorial venture “Bajrangi Bhaijan”. Kabir had started his career working in documentary movies in Afghanistan.
After the press conference Kabir gave me his valuable time for this interview:
This year at IFFI Bajrangi Bhaijan was screened at the Indian Panorama section, how do you feel?
I feel great. The kind of love and acclaim I have received for Bajrangi Bhaijan is quite heart warming. I am really happy that it was screened at BFF and now at the IFFI. I consider myself lucky that most of my films have found larger audience.
You started out with documentary films do you think your films, in a way, use documentary themes into the mainstream?
With my documentary background I always try to have a real context in my films. Whenever I used to watch mainstream cinema I used to feel alienated by the fact that there is no context to the story. So when I got an opportunity to make mainstream cinema I thought let me try and bring context to what the story is all about. Does it have a political or a historical context. The moment you put the real context into perspective it helped me engage with the audience more. In that sense documentary has helped me a lot.
Earlier this year, Bajrangi Bhaijan screened at many film festivals, were you expecting that?
When you are making mainstream films especially with superstars, you are really not thinking of festivals. That’s because you don’t have the time to travel to festivals before the film’s release. In the case of Bajrangi Bhaijan, at that point of time, we were not thinking of festivals at all. But we are happy that it has been received the way it has and that people are inquiring and inviting us to festivals. Bajrangi Bhaijan was screened at Busan Film Festival ( Korea ) and 5,000 people came to watch the film, that thrilled me a lot.
Salman Khan is not an easy actor to get along with, how was your experience working with him?
When I was making “Ek tha Tiger” with Salman, we had a very good time working together. We understood each other well and became good friends. Salman is very fond of my kids and we have become a close knit family. I respect Salman and when I watched Bajrangi Bhaijan as an audience I felt that it is Salman’s best performance ever.
As a film maker any other comments on Bollywood Cinema?
I strongly feel Bollywood is loosing good writers as they are choosing to become filmmakers.
Why most of your films deal with cross border issues?
As an audience I found that movies didn’t have a strong backdrop, this is why my films have strong political context.
Kabir has given so many hit films such as Ek tha Tiger, New York, Kabul Express, Phantom and Bajrangi Bhaijan. BB had really impressed me when whole of Sydney talked about Salman and his role and the beautiful young girl played by Harshaali Malhotra. It was nice to meet Kabir Khan in person, the man behind the movie, who extracted such good performance from not only Salman, the girl and of course the brilliant acting from Navazuddin Siddiqui.
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