Subhash Ghai at 50: new actors, a musical and a student mindset

Fifty years after he began shaping Hindi cinema as a storyteller, Subhash Ghai is not planning a victory lap. The filmmaker behind Karz, Ram Lakhan, Khal Nayak, Taal and Pardes is looking for his next show — one built around new faces rather than stars.

Still a student at 50

Ghai told India Today Digital he is still learning as technology and formats shift from the big screen to OTT, mobiles and micro formats. “Every day there is a discovery,” he said. That includes AI, which he says he is studying rather than dismissing.

His advice to young filmmakers is to trust their own stories. “Do not follow anyone,” he said, adding that aspiring creators should follow their guts, stories and thoughts in whatever format they choose.

The theatre as an event

For all his curiosity about new screens, Ghai still believes a cinema hall offers something no other format can replicate. He described the ritual: the doors close, the lights go off, the audience is held by a story for hours, and then the response comes as claps, whistles and tears. Cinema, in his view, becomes an event.

That belief runs through Whistling Woods International, the institute he founded. Its annual three-day Celebrate Cinema festival begins on Wednesday, with this year’s theme focused on the impact of big-screen cinema. Ghai said his inspiration was English filmmaker David Lean, whose large-scale frames made audiences feel the desert or the snow around them.

A new-star musical next

Ghai is equally clear about how film economics have changed. In the 1980s, 1990s and up to 2010, he said independent filmmakers could make the film they wanted. Now, films are financed by investors and corporates that look at figures and data, and talent is often valued on numbers rather than craft.

That has not stopped him from planning a comeback on his own terms. His wish list includes:

• A big musical with unknown actors and no star pressure.
• A young pair around 25 years old leading the screen.
• A story that puts spirit and spiritualism above money and power.
• A chance to create a new actor, a new star and a new director for the industry.

His last directorial remains Kaanchi: The Unbreakable (2014). What he misses from older sets, he said, is the collective ownership: even the spot boy, cameraman and sound person felt the film belonged to them. Today, he suggested, payment matters more than work for many on set.

But Ghai is not returning to recreate Khal Nayak or Taal. He wants a story that can trigger a “spiritual revolution” among young viewers — musical and entertaining, but interested in spirit over money and power.

“I want to create a new actor, a new star, a new brilliant actor for the industry,” Ghai said. That, for a filmmaker at 50 years in cinema, is the real headline: the Showman is still chasing his next show.

Source: India Today