THE prominent film director, screenwriter, and cinematographer, Kabir Khan, has just made his debut in the vibrant web domain with The Forgotten Army, a fictionalized series on Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army (INA; also called the Azad Hind Fauj). A postgraduate from the Mass Communication Research Centre at Jamia Millia Islamia, Khan hails from a family of prominent politicians and academics. He started his career working in the documentary films Beyond the Himalayas (1996) and The Forgotten Army (1999) and then made his directorial debut in feature films in 2006 with Kabul Express, which was followed by New York (2009), Ek Tha Tiger (2012), Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015), Phantom (2015) and Tubelight (2017).
Khan is best known for the 2015 comedy-drama Bajrangi Bhaijaan. The Forgotten Army is a fictionalized series, a conversion of his 1999 documentary of the same name which was streamed on Amazon Prime. He cowrote The Forgotten Army with Heeraz Marfatia (Aazaan) and Shubhra Marfatia (Wazir). Khan is also an executive producer of the series with frequent collaborator Rajan Kapoor. The Forgotten Army is spread over five episodes and was released on January 24, a day after Subhas Chandra Bose’s birth anniversary and just before Republic Day.
Khan talked about the philosophy that drives him to make the kind of cinema he does, his views on his recent release, and the role of film-makers in the society they live in. As one of the prominent voices from the world of cinema who spoke out against the highly controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019, and the police excesses on campuses, he stressed the importance of defending fundamental freedoms and democratic values. Excerpts from the interview.
You are a mainstream film-maker, and you are making your debut in the web-streaming domain. What are the challenges and opportunities in this new domain?
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