Bollywood choreographer turned director Farah Khan who was at IFFI on Wednesday spoke of how she does not expect movies to educate her
ALIYA ABERU
Speaking about the kind of movies she likes to watch while “In Conversation” with film critic Rajeev Masand at Maquinez Palace, director and choreographer Farah Khan said she admires movies that let her breathe. “My movies are full of flurry, so I love movies that have serenity. “The only thing a movie should do, is it should not bore me. It should engage me at different levels and make me feel some sort of emotion without boring me,” she said, adding, “I don’t expect a film to educate me, because I went to school (to get educated).”
She also expressed frustration at the kind of pressure that was being put on filmmakers to make films with social messages. “The pressure being put nowadays for films to have social messages is too much. If society had to be turned around by movies, then gandhigiri would be the new religion, and an India-Pakistan peace treaty would have been signed after “Main Hoon Na,” she said.
She however said she appreciated films like “Munnabhai” saying, “It’s lovely because it’s so tongue-in-cheek and still telling you something at the end of it. But that (the social message) is not the primary objective of the film.”
Speaking further about why she hates being called a “woman director”, Khan said that she genuinely doesn’t think a director needs to have a gender. “It’s not a gender-specific job. I just happen to be a woman... which makes me more organised, hard-working, and better at my job. Other than that, you can’t tell whether a woman or man directed my films,” she said, to laughs and cheers from the audience.
She also added that if she’s called for a photo shoot with “female directors,” she refuses to go. “I tell them to slot me for a photo shoot with “directors”, and not “women directors.” Very strangely I find many women directors accepting and reveling in the tag of “woman director.” And yet we fight for gender equality,” she said.
The filmmaker also said that as a part of future goals and dreams, she would love to choreograph a song featuring Hollywood actor Tom Cruise.
