One Year Of Film Khuda Haafiz: ‘The Only Regret I Have Is That My Father Wasn’t Able To See The Film,’ Says Faruk Kabir, Director Of The Vidyut Jammwal Starrer-EXCLUSIVE
As the Vidyut Jammwal and Shivaleeka Oberoi starrer Khuda Haafiz clocks one year today, director Faruk Kabir revisits the film and what made it more special
One year ago today, Vidyut Jammwal and Shivaleeka Oberoi came with an action-drama titled Khuda Haaafiz, directed by Faruk Kabir. It had released on Disney+ Hotstar. The film told the story of a newly married couple who lose their jobs during the recession and find new jobs in the middle east, which gets them embroiled in a human trafficking racket. The film showed the journey of how the husband goes to lengths to get his wife back.
A sequel to the film, titled Khuda Haafiz: Chapter 2, is currently on the floors in Lucknow, with the same team. On the occasion of the film’s first anniversary, its director reminisces some memories from the first film. “It was after a slight gap that I was making a film with Khuda Haafiz, although I was making web series in between constantly. But the film became more personal to me as I lost my father just days before I started the film,” Faruk avers.
He goes on to share that the film challenged him emotionally. “To lose a parent and then go on to making a film that requires a different amount of depth, I was pushed to a place emotionally that I haven’t been to before. I was very close to my father, so his loss made the journey all the more personal. Even before starting Chapter 2, I went to his grave to take some blessings and took some soil from his grave to keep with me,” he shares.
Khuda Haafiz was shot in Uzbekistan and Faruk feels that making that film in Uzbekistan was difficult, but things somehow got simplified eventually due to his father’s blessings. “The only regret I have is that he wasn’t able to see the film, although he did hear the script.”
Faruk insists that the advantage of OTT is that your project is there to stay, and he shares that he still gets appreciation and messages for the film. “Usually, we gauge success on the basis of box-office and initially we were unable to figure out how to measure the success of the film on OTT. But according to reports and surveys, we got great feedback. Nielsen report said that Khuda Haafiz was the third most-watched film on OTT last year, and by Ormax report, it was the second-most-watched on OTT and the top most-watched film on the satellite channel. And that was the reason also why I agreed to make Chapter 2,” he reveals.
Ask him to recall any special incident from the film set last time, and he shares, “Every day had its own challenges during the shoot in Uzbekistan and it was a really extreme schedule. The average temperature every day there was -6 degrees centigrade, but even though we were shooting in such extreme conditions, we were able to wrap up the schedule four days before it was meant to. It gave us a lot of confidence as we realised that when the team comes together nothing is impossible.”
Image source: IMDb, Instagram/farukkabir9
Image source: IMDb, Instagram/farukkabir9
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