 "Sanjay Leela Bhansali opens up on returning to Berlinale for Gangubai Kathiawadi: 'Berlin has always welcomed my films warmly'")
On Sunday night Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Alia Bhatt flew to Berlin for the screening of their collaborative venture Gangubai Kathiawadi in the prestigious Berlinale Special Gala Section.
The Devdas director landed to a slew of press meets and interviews that he is not happy about.
“My film, OUR film,” he corrects himself to include his Gangubai Alia in the creative fold, “should speak for itself. Giving interviews about a film that has not gone into the public domain makes no sense.”
The response Gangubai Kathiawadi has received has been overwhelming. “Berlin has always welcomed my films warmly. In 1999, Hum…Dil De Chuke Sanam had been invited by what I’d like to think was divine intervention. The Berlin Film festival’s representative for South Asia Dorothy Wenner was in Mumbai. One evening she asked her taxi driver if he had seen any good films lately. The driver—God bless him—immediately recommended Hum…Dil De Chuke Sanam. That’s how she ended up seeing the film, loving it and inviting it to Berlin. I owe that taxi driver a big thank you.”
Much has happened since then. And Bhansali admits it. “It’s a different world since then. Going out for a film now is a luxury not everyone can afford. Will Gangubai Kathiawadi bring the audiences back? I am hoping and praying it would. We’ve worked hard to make it a big-screen experience.”
The filmmaker is all praise for his Alia Bhatt. “The kind of hard work that she has put in says a lot about her dedication to her craft. Alia had no idea about the world that the real Gangubai inhabited. She had to learn from scratch. Alia is a fast learner. Her dedication to getting it right was fearsome.”
Games
View AllBhansali shudders when he remembers shooting for the Garba song with Alia. “She had to dance like a woman possessed. And she gave a hundred percent of herself. She created the whole frenzied dance in one shot. I knew I had to stop her before it was too late. If she had continued dancing for one more minute she would’ve collapsed.”
Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He’s been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out.
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