Deepika Padukone and Anupama Chopra chat during the Marrakech Film Festival. The Front Row with Anupama Chopra. WSJ India Real Time
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The Wall Street Journal, India Real Time (Marrakech, Morocco, December 6, 2013) — On this week’s “The Front Row,” Bollywood critic Anupama Chopra chats with directors Anurag Kashyap and Sanjay Leela Bhansali, and actor Deepika Padukone at the Marrakech International Film Festival. A film starring Ms. Padukone and directed by Mr. Bhansali, ‘Goliyon ki Rasleela: Ram-Leela’, was shown at the festival.
Here are edited excerpts from their conversations:
Anupama Chopra: When you’re on a film jury with Martin Scorsese, who is one of the greatest living directors in the world, how do you disagree with him?
Anurag Kashyap and Anupama Chopra in conversation. The Front Row with Anupama Chopra
Anurag Kashyap: In fact, he encourages you to talk. Last night, he was sitting with all of us and when he talks, one can make out that he looks at cinema just as the man on the street does. He is so curious. There are some great directors at this film festival who not only love their cinema, but also love each other’s cinema.
Anupama: This festival [the Marrakech International Film Festival] has become what it is in only thirteen years. India also hosts film festivals, like the International Film Festival of India [IFFI], which is almost 60 years old. Yet, there is something lacking. What do you think is the problem?
Mr. Kashyap: Our problem is that we think like a herd. We just follow. We lack courage to discover, to reinvent. There’s no love for cinema in the first place.
With the resources that we have, we can do so much. The only films that make it to festivals like IFFI are those that have already been discovered and appreciated in various other festivals. It’s just our attitude.
Anupama: I interviewed Deepika [Padukone] and Ranveer [Singh] before the release of ‘Goliyon ki Rasleela: Ram-Leela’ and talked to them about how they created the chemistry in the movie. They both said, “It’s all Sanjay Bhansali.” So how did you create it?
Sanjay Leela Bhansali: It’s one of the most physically intimate films I have made. I just felt so liberated when I was doing this. It was almost like, if a moment requires a kiss, so please go ahead and kiss! There is no need to sing a song or run around or suggest that there was a kiss.
Anupama: But was this a conscious decision on your part?
Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Anupama Chopra in conversation at the film festival. The Front Row with Anupama Chopra
Mr. Bhansali: Absolutely. I wanted this film to be physically intimate, to be different from anything that I had done before. If it hadn’t been, I would have repeated myself. It is very important to reinvent and to treat a film differently.
Anupama: As an actor, what do you take away from a festival like this?
Deepika Padukone: Honestly, this is my first time at a festival where my film was shown.
I couldn’t have asked for a better film to bring to a festival, especially to a place like Marrakech where Indian cinema is familiar and celebrated.
Anupama: How did it feel seeing thousands of people watch your film?
Ms. Padukone: It’s overwhelming. The amazing part is that not all of them speak Hindi. They either speak Arabic or French and just the love to see an actor from India. They were excited about how I spoke Hindi, or even English. It’s good to see Indian cinema reaching out to a global audience.
Watch “The Front Row with Anupama Chopra” on Friday at 8:30 p.m. on Star World for the full conversation. For more details on the show log on to their website, follow them on twitter @tfr2013 and on Facebook.
Follow India Real Time on Twitter @WSJIndia.
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