Imtiaz Ali: You Need Shah Rukh Khan’s Exuberance, Aamir Khan’s Content To Break Through Different Markets

Filmmaker Imtiaz Ali feels that the film industry should make use of the combination of Shah Rukh Khan’s exuberance and Aamir Khan’s content to reach out to different markets.

The Highway director spoke during the FICCI Frames session titled Chinese Dragon Market for Elephantine Indian Films where the success of Aamir’s Dangal and Secret Superstar was analysed.

Imtiaz said, “You need Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan as a combination of exuberance and content to break through and get into different markets. Of course, I’ve shot with Shah Rukh in Europe etc, so there’s hardly a place that we went and people didn’t recognise him. That’s a great thing for us. What it does is that it changes the quality of your own work when you get aware of the fact that different people from all over the world are watching. I think there is a qualitative improvement in cinema as a result of it travelling abroad.”

When further he was asked if he would like to direct a film in Mandarin, Imtiaz said, “When I think about Mandarin, what comes to my mind is really exotic Chinese music and people eating with chopsticks and some pretty looking girls. (And) when I think about the films I have made, many of them could have been Mandarin films. I think from a very personal space if I want to make a certain film or not.”

“But now, I feel I already have a lot of scripts for mandarin films, especially one that I have been toying with from a long time. It gives writers and directors an oppportunity to tell stories with a bigger heart, to a bigger audience,” said the Tamasha director.