'Film Industry Doesn't Like New Things'

‘When you try to do something that’s not been tried before, nobody likes that.’

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Having made successful films like Rock On!!, Kai Po Che and Kedarnath, Abhishek Kapoor holds a niche for his directing talent in the Hindi commercial space.

‘Gattu’ Kapoor is gearing up for probably his most ambitious film yet, Azaad, which tells the tale of love and loyalty between humans and animals. Featuring Ajay Devgn in a retro look, the film marks the starry launchpad for Ajay’s nephew Aaman, Raveena Tandon’s daughter Rasha Thadani, as well as for a handsome jet black horse. “The fact that you’re trying to create a new experience, the most amazing thing would be to find new faces so that when the audiences watch it, they’re pulled into a world they’ve never experienced before,” Abhishek Kapoor tells.

At the trailer launch, you said Azaad was almost 10 years in the making. What made this story stuck with you for so long?

I wrote the script in 2016, and have been waiting to make it since then. It’s such a difficult movie. The industry doesn’t like change, they don’t like new things. They like to work on repetition. It has become a machine. If you’re going to follow a trend, it’s easier to just get things going. But when you try to do something that’s not been tried before, nobody likes that. So you just need to wait for the right opportunity When it comes, you seize the moment, like I did with Azaad.

This seems to be a film that visually goes back to an old-fashioned aesthetic, like the Hindi cinema of the 1980s. Were there any films in particular that you were referencing or inspired by when designing the look for Azaad?