'India needs at least 100 film schools'
Film maker Subhash Ghai is a man like no other. He has given the country films like Pardes, Taal, Khalnayak, Saudagar and won himself the title of the ‘showman’ of Hindi cinema — for the grandeur as well as themes explored in his films.
“Every time I have new characters, actors and audiences in front of me, I know I can’t get bored. I’m a man from cinema, and cinema deals with human experiences. You need to constantly be learning and understanding people around you,” he tells Metrolife.
What few people know about him is that his dream of working in Bollywood was almost thrashed by his father, who wanted him to be a chartered accountant. “I wanted to just sing, dance and know people. In both school and college, I was a very bad student and always got below 35 per cent. But my teachers still liked me because I was a good boy,” laughs Subhash, who later did a diploma course from Pune’s Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). FTII turned out to be one of his best learning experiences and the films he has made since 1976 till date are all reflective of that.
Keeping this in mind, he set up his dream project, the state-of-the-art film institute — Whistling Woods International. “In film schools, you can’t fit too many students into each batch. I think India needs at least a 100 cinema schools so that we can nurture creative talent and remove mediocrity,” he shares.
The 67-year-old director is very excited about his latest film, Kaanchi, which stars Rishi Kapoor and Mithun Chakraborty. “It’s a love story about a young, poor girl from the mountains and her mission to do something,” he informs, adding that he is on the lookout for the perfect female lead. He is also producing Apna Sapna Money Money 2 and has roped in the Deols (Sunny, Bobby and Dharmendra) for another film called Ishq De Maare.
