Perspective Is Never Right Or Wrong- It's About Experience: Kabir Khan

"As a filmmaker, when I meet with so many people, I get their views on different subjects. Perspective is never right or wrong; it's always about the experience," said Bollywood filmmaker Kabir Khan.

Speaking at BW Businessworld’s Future of Design Summit, Khan said that empathy is about emotions, including establishing an emotional connection. Empathic communication entails recognising different perspectives and emotions, as well as sharing them. 

Sharing his journey in filmmaking, Khan said, "In my initial years, I was associated with journalist Saeed Naqvi. I travelled to around 70 countries with him. I was reporting on international affairs from an Indian perspective. From there, I went into documentaries. As far as Western media is concerned, there is always a perspective that is unheard of, which is not told to us. I learned to find those gaps. 

While discussing the processes of making a movie, he explained, there is no typical approach to making a film. I always try to do as much research as I can about the subject. In the case of '83 (movie), I did about two years of research. Since India does not have an archiving culture, it was really difficult to research it. I would to meet journalists and talk to people who knew about the subject. Fortunately, I found the archive material at the Lord's.

Pulling off good movies back-to-back needs more than mere luck. Nowadays, filmmakers have been receiving threats if it seems that the theme of a movie is violating the so-called community guidelines, which have been set by a certain group of people. 

“There will always be hurdles; it’s only a dream scenario that when you embark on a journey, there will be no hurdles in your path. Sometimes they are much bigger; the biggest hurdle I faced was in my first film; within 10 days of landing in Afghanistan, I got death threats from the Taliban,” he added.

In Bollywood, highs are really high and lows can be quite low. "The good part is, if you don't take the successes seriously, you won’t be affected too badly by the failures," Khan shares his success mantra. 

Notably, Khan is known for films like Kabul Express, Ek Tha Tiger, Bajrangi Bhaijaan and 83.