The Filmistan Connection

Another interview! It had been a while since we interviewed a Filmistani and thought why not interview someone who has a long queue of upcoming projects so we could get a little insight into what we all might be seeing in the future, as far as films are concerned. We interviewed someone who had completely blown us away by doing a proper musical, yes that’s the only ‘musical’ ever made in Filmistan: Jaan-E-Mann, a movie we loved! We had the pleasure of speaking with Shirish Kunder, who was sweet enough to answer all our questions over the phone and was tolerant of our giggles and laughs in-between…maybe one day Shirish will use our giggles in a movie and we’ll be to some Filmis what Agastya is to us…kaash!

In this interview Shirish talked about his various projects, the ones in the works, on hold due to financial issues and of course the one in the past. His experience in the film industry so far, basically some really good Filmi fun! And of course, you’ll notice the format of the interview…ab waqt ke saath toh chalna padta hi hai but it took a while to figure out how to embed the files, for some reason all the codes out there weren’t working, but it finally worked and now you get to be a little more filmi!

We’ve been hearing a lot about your upcoming films – Tees Maar Khan, Joker, Alien Sahib, and Udan Patola – can you give us a little tidbit about each one.

Here’s what he said

Discusses why he changed the name to Alien Sabhib form Udan Patola and further talks about Alien Sahib.

Here’s what he said

Talks about another film in the works under ‘Three’s Company’ with Salman Khan, an action film. They will start shooting for this film once completing Alien Sahib. He also discusses Joker.

Here’s what he said

Please tell us about your experience with Jaan-E-Mann.

Here’s what he said

What’s your favorite thing about Jaan-E-Mann, favorite memory about making that movie?

Here’s what he said

What made you change your paths so drastically, from electronics engineer to writer/director? Also, what advice would he give to anyone interested in working in ‘Bollywood?’ (We know, we know…it’s Filmistan.)

Here’s what he said

What kind of challenges do you face in your job?

Here’s what he said

What’s the best thing about your job?

Here’s what he said

How do you start the process of writing a script? Do you first have the characters in mind or the story?

Here’s what he said

Here’s what he said

And lastly, our “rapid fire” round…the favorites!

Pastime: Watching movies!
Food: I’m not a foodie, I’ll eat basically anything….protein shakes!
Movie: Man on the Moon by Milos Forman.
Filmmaker: James Cameron
Book: Mahabharat
Song: Chayyia Chayyia from Dil Se
City: New York

And lastly. . . Shirish close your eyes and tell us your favorite thing to do in Mumbai. If it were a Sunday morning, where would you take us?

Hmmm….haven’t thought of that yet. I’d have to look at your pictures first.

Jasmine: You would have to look at our pictures?
Shirish: Yeah, yeah…(laughs)
Jasmine: We’re your Facebook and Twitter friends. (laughs) We’ll say ‘hi’ on there and than you’ll know what we look like.
Shirish: I’ll take you wherever you guys want to go yaar. (laughs)

There was a lot of laughing going on at this point…that’s why we transcribed this part of the interview, it’s kind of hard to hear over all that laughing.

Sona: What do you do on Sunday mornings?
Shirish: I’m mostly working…(laughs)
Shirish: I guess you’ll take us to your workplace than…

More laughing

Shirish: Yeah yeah, I’ll take you to my workplace…that’s what I do, I just wake up and go to work (laughing)!