At the International Film Festival of India, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Abhijat Joshi transformed their onstage conversation into a lively blend of performance, memory and craft, as Chopra sang, acted out scenes from his early fights and explained how each phase of his life shaped films from “Parinda” to “1942: A Love Story” and “12th Fail.”
Joshi, famous screenwriter has worked exclusively with writer-producer-director Chopra for over 30 years, on his films such as “Lage Raho Munnabhai” and “3 Idiots”. In a session titled Unscripted – The Art and Emotion of Filmmaking, the conversation between the two long-time collaborators, on the stage of the Kala Academy of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), was freewheeling, peppered with anecdotes and spontaneous performances.
Chopra, 73, sang on stage and stood to relive moments from his early wrestling days, including the effort it took to obtain a visa and passport to attend the Oscars when his documentary short “An Encounter With Faces” received a nomination in 1979.
Chopra has directed a range of films, from the gritty “Parinda” (1989) to the musical love story “1942: A Love Story” and the biographical drama “12th Fail” (2023).
The conversation began with Chopra explaining how her cinematic style has changed over the past five decades. “Every film reflects who I am at that moment,” he said. “I was angry when I made ‘Parinda’. You can see this violence in the film. Today, I am calmer.”
The “12th failure,” he said, came from witnessing the corruption around him. “The film was my way of saying, for a change, let’s be honest. If I can change even 1% of the bureaucracy, that will be enough.”
The newly restored 8K version of his 1994 film “1942: A Love Story” screened at IFFI, an emotional experience for the filmmaker. “I saw it for the first time in 8K resolution at the cinema here. I got very emotional seeing what they did with the colors, with the sound. It’s a film that I can’t make anymore. I made it at that time because I was in love with a woman that I married, and that love shows in the film. For an artist, if I can use the word loosely, the right thing is to represent what he experiences in his work. So I reflect what I see and feel,” he said.
Chopra explained that each film dictates its own process; preparation is not a formula but something that emerges from the content itself. Reflecting on “1942: A Love Story,” he recalled the painstaking efforts behind even small visual moments, like the photo of Manisha Koirala running with birds overhead. With no CGI available at the time, his team scattered bread crumbs on top of a mountain at night so that real birds would appear at dawn. He also recounted an incident in which actor Jackie Shroff, on his way to see Chopra, accidentally went to the wrong apartment, waking up a surprised woman and handing her the flowers he had brought for his director. “The next morning, she told everyone in the neighborhood that she had a dream that Jackie Shroff was visiting her,” Chopra said, drawing laughter and applause from the audience.
Joshi further highlighted how Chopra refused to produce sequels to “Munna Bhai” or “3 Idiots”, even at great financial cost, choosing to wait for years to get the script right. When Joshi asked Chopra what was that particular emotional truth that a filmmaker must not compromise on, the latter replied, “This journey is very difficult but… always make a film that you believe in, support it and hope that the audience will like it too.”
The session concluded with “1942: A Love Story” writer Kamna Chandra and producer Yogesh Ishwar joining Chopra and Joshi on stage. Ishwar detailed the 8K restoration journey in Italy, cleaning the film frame by frame, extensive color grading and sound remastering that ultimately allowed the film to appear as Chopra and cinematographer Binod Pradhan had envisioned it more than 30 years ago.
