During a conversation at India TV’s ‘The Filmy Hustle’ podcast, Bollywood director Kabir Khan opened up about his journey from making documentaries to feature films.
Bollywood’s famous director Kabir Khan is known for his excellent films. He has worked with several A-listers like Salman Khan, Ranveer Singh, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Katrina Kaif, among others. The filmmaker has given many hit films in his 9-year film career. He started his career by working in documentary films and then made his feature film directorial debut in 2006 with the adventure thriller ‘Kabul Express’. He is known for directing ‘New York’ (2009), ‘Ek Tha Tiger’ (2012), ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’ (2015) and ’83’ (2021). His film ‘Chandu Champion’ (2024), released in 2024, also received good reviews. This was his second sports biopic after Ranveer Singh’s ’83’.
Kabir Khan looks back at his journey
Kabir Khan made many revelations about his education and career. He said that apart from Kirori Mal College of Delhi University, he has also studied the art of making films at Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi. In the early days of his career, he worked with well-known journalist Saeed Naqvi as his cameraman and travelled around the world covering several international issues. He travelled to about 60 countries for five years and shot documentaries with a senior journalist.
Imagine at the age of 22 to 27 you travel to about 60 countries and this is not a normal travel, where you visit some place, eat the regional food and come back. Here, we were trying to get under the skin of the people, we were getting to know about their achievements and sorrows. And now that I think of it, I am what I am today, is because of those five years. Those years taught me a lot and I safe to say that I really understood the meaning of shooting, capturing moments from there,’ the director said while looking back at his journey.
How did Kabir shift from documentaries to film?
While taking the conversation further, Kabir revealed that during a life and death situation in Afghanistan, the filmmaker understood the real power of Bollywood and decided that if he made it alive out of there, he would make feature films. And that’s exactly what happened, Kabir and his friend made it out of the country safely and wrote a story about their experience and got Yash Raj Films to back their project. This film was 2006’s John Abraham and Arshad Warsi starrer Kabul Express, which also got Kabir Khan his first National Award in the category, National Film Award for Best Debut Film of a Director.
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