Making of the Making

The cult-classic film of Bollywood, ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge’ celebrates 20 years. Young filmmaker Saif Akhtar, captured the spirit and euphoria that continues to enthrall the audience in his documentary titled ‘DDLJ - Making of the Film’ that he made for Yash Raj Films. The three-part docu-film is available on YouTube

Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge’ – the movie that continues to enjoy cult following amongst the audience and filmmakers, and has proven evidences of influencing lives and launching careers has completed an important milestone.

The film is celebrating its 20th anniversary – it was released on October 19, 1995, and since then, the film ran uninterruptedly, at the now iconic, Maratha Mandir. Last year, when DDLJ completed 1,000 weeks, Yash Raj Films wanted to make a documentary on the making of the film.

The production house had over 200-hours footage during the shoot at Switzerland and India. And they were looking for a filmmaker, who would do justice to their most prestigious film.

Saif Akhtar, a documentary filmmaker from Mumbai has earlier worked with Dibakar Banerjee for ‘Bombay Talkies’ and ‘Byomkesh Bakshi’. “I help in research and for both the films we had additional footage that will not fit into the film and hence, it led to the making videos,” he shares.

For ‘Byomkesh Bakshi’, he had spoken to writers and the different actors, who enacted the role. All this was included in the making video. He even did the one-hour international cut for the film. Yet another documentary by him, ‘Cities of Sleep’ will premiere at the MAMI, which starts on October 29.

One thing led to another and the responsibility to make a documentary that would mark the 1,000 weeks of DDLJ fell upon Saif Akhtar and his Kibbootz films, last year.

“Initially we wanted to capture the popular culture that came up around the movie and the many people who actually earned their living from the euphoria surrounding the film. We made a pitch based on these ideas. And finally by adding the rare footage, it became a different product,” shares Saif.

Popular and familiar scenes are unravelled in the documentary as you see young Adi Chopra trying to bring some semblance to the exuberant team he had on his hands. Shah Rukh Khan, Karan Johar, Kajol, Saroj Khan, Farah Khan are all there, becoming a part of history in the making.

The actors share their insights and vignettes from the shooting spot in the never-seen-before footage. There is also an interesting video, where actors talk to themselves. “We had to finish the documentary in two months’ time in time for the 1000th week and with so much of footage and details available, it was a challenging job.

The last one month was even crazier as we were rushing to get appointments of actors and technicians, who worked for the film and Shah Rukh was not even in the city. It was not until the last day that Shah Rukh finally called us to Mannath and spoke to us. When we finally had the film ready just in time, it was decided that it will be made available in public domain on the occasion of the 20th anniversary. During this time, we added few more details,” Saif relates the experience of working on the film.

In addition to having glimpses of a poster collector, a cake-maker and a band that specialises in DDLJ theme, the film also has captured candid expressions of the audience during the screening of the 1000th show at Maratha Mandir.

“We have much more information that we could have added. Now the three-part series that you see on YouTube is just the restricted format that works for international festivals. The documentary ‘DDLJ Making of the Film’ will be converted into a DVD, and will then be sent to various film festivals,” he shares.

The video is nostalgic, entertaining and absolutely watch-worthy for fans who never tire of watching the film, and is an apt ode to one of the biggest classics of Hindi film industry. Saif Akhtar, who himself is a Shah Rukh and DDLJ fan is quite excited about the film and is all set to work with his hero’s next movie, ‘Fan’.