Koffee with Karan season 5: Imtiaz Ali, Kabir Khan, Zoya Akhtar fuel an inspiring episode

A lot of Koffee with Karan seasons follow a similar format. It’s usually the bigger stars that make an appearance first, and the latter few episodes are reserved for the rest of the industry folk. The show itself caters to its guests stardom, and the questions and topics discussed are mostly either pertaining to their personal life or controversies.

This episode from season five, however, with directors Zoya Akhtar, Kabir Khan and Imtiaz Ali was very interesting. It actually gave an insight into the minds of these three filmmakers, how they work and how their creative juices flow.

There was a conversation about songs in their films, and how each director deals with a lip-sync situation. With Johar’s films, the songs are an integral part of the narrative, but both Imtiaz Ali and Zoya Akhtar, whose films have some excellent music, spoke about how shooting songs are a lot of fun, but they have to make sense to the film. Zoya gave an example of the song ‘Senorita’ from Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, and how she got all three actors in the film, Abhay Deol, Hrithik Roshan and Farhan Akhtar to sing it, to lend a sense of authenticity.

Kabir Khan also informed us about how it is being an “outsider” — a documentary filmmaker from Delhi who only wanted to make one film. He said that since he has already achieved what he wished for, and more, that everything he does now is bonus for him. He also shared an interesting anecdote about how Salman Khan can cry on camera at the drop of a hat.

The conversation also veered towards film criticism in India. While Zoya admitted that she reads some reviews, and has actually learned from a suggestion critic Baradwaj Rangan made about her dialogues being too literal a translation of her original English lines. Karan Johar said he has an obsessive problem of reading everything out there.

Kabir and Imtiaz were rather nonchalant of reviews, but Kabir did reveal a story about a producer had told him about the concepts of a pre-friday film and a post-friday film. The former is a film that has recovered its cost before its theatrical release, through music or satellite rights and such, while the latter is a film that gains popularity via good word of mouth.

Watch this episode here , for a truly engaging conversation about Indian cinema from its talented filmmakers.