By: Mohnish Singh
Celebrated Bollywood filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who forays into the digital world with his much-talked-about streaming show Heeramandi, set at Netflix, shared his childhood memory of watching a film shoot that inspired him to pursue filmmaking as a career.
“I remember when I was a four-year-old kid, my father had taken me to a shoot and he said, “You sit here and I’ll meet my friends and come.” I was in the studio and it seemed the most comfortable to me. More than a school, a playground, a cousin’s house, or anywhere in the world, I thought it was the most beautiful place. When I look back at 25 years, I think it is very precious to me because you have to be blessed to be able to get a chance to make a film and that’s why I cling to the studio because the studio floor is the most magical, that’s my temple, that’s my everything,” the filmmaker said during an interview on Netflix India’s Tudum Spotlight.
He went on to add, “I still, as a child, remember going to a theatre and watching those projectors used to have a beam of light that falls on the screen, across with my, my mind would never be there. My mind would be here and ghost particles float into it and say, okay, one day, my story will float.”
Talking about Heeramandi, he said, “Heeramandi was something that my friend Moin Baig got to me as a 14-page story, 14 years ago and then finally when we presented it to Netflix, they loved it and they thought it had great potential to make a mega-series. It is very ambitious; it is very big and vast. It tells you the story of courtesans. They kept music, poetry and dance and the art of living. It shows the politics within the brothels and how to emerge as the winner. It is a difficult one but I hope we come across with flying colours this time.”
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