When Sanjay Leela Bhansali responded to ‘can you ever make a realistic film’

In the interview Sanjay Leela Bhansali had said that he loved documentaries and parallel cinema as well as mainstream cinema. In the same interview that he gave in 2016, the filmmaker also spoke about how the film industry’s opinion did not matter to him. He said if a film does not work at the box office, it doesn’t mean that the filmmaker or actor had lost their touch.

When he was asked if he’ll ‘ever make a realistic film’, the director had told Filmfare in 2016, “Maybe. In my films I create my own world. That’s my signature style. My audience likes to get lost in the world I create. To create another world I have to work far harder and be far more imaginative than others. This world, which I create, is more real to me than any other world. But if tomorrow I want to make a film as simple as following a woman on the road I’ll do it. I respect every genre. There are many filmmakers, critics who do not respect other genres. I love documentaries, I love parallel cinema, I love art house cinema, I love mainstream cinema. I expect people to also understand that if there is an Anurag Kashyap making a certain kind of film, there is SLB making a certain kind of film, without comparing or putting anyone in any order. We must appreciate that Bimal Roy and Raj Kapoor existed side-by-side.”

Sanjay’s last film was the Alia Bhatt-starrer Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022). Sanjay unveiled the teaser of his much-awaited project, Heeramandi, recently. The show will mark the filmmaker’s OTT debut and is all set to premiere on Netflix this year. The period drama stars Sonakshi Sinha, Manisha Koirala, Richa Chadha, Aditi Rao Hydari, Sanjeeda Shaikh and Sharmin Segal. Set in Lahore, the series followed the lives of the courtesans of that era.