Taher Ali Baig: Cinema has no language!

Writer-director-producer Taher Ali Baig, who is very excited about his most recent project, a short film Fitrat starring Sudhanshu Pandey and Rajit Kapoor, is also a distinguished playwright.  He has worked both in south industry and Bollywood and feels that the two are not very different. “I believe that cinema has no language. Nativity and geography just change the treatment of the film a little. At the end it all boils down to the “love of art”, we all are here for the love of it. Aren’t we? However, saying so the film industry in the South has a distinct voice to its treatment.”

“If you notice, we mostly make films for the suppressed and the underprivileged. It’s not all just glamorous. We make movies with great, accomplished actors, which are relatable to people not just in metropolitans, but also majorly in the rural areas and specific social segments. Most of the movies from the south have a language that conveys a social message in one way or the other. They are inspiring and not just entertaining,” he says.

He has always been a big fan of movies and has learnt a lot from them. “I have reached out to and grown up watching different movies of every genre and movie making styles. One needs to be conscious about what has been made and what is being made. I have watched everything from Subhash Ghai’s movies like Karma, Ram Lakhan, to Bachan Saab’s movies like Namak Halal, Sharabi, Dewaar, then SRK’s movies like Deewana to art movies like Masoom and many classics, which cannot be missed, like Mugal-E-Azam,” he says.

He also has a long list of directors whose work he loves. “I like K.Asif, Satyajit Ray, Guru Dutt, Yash Chopra, Shekhar Kapoor, Mani Ratnam, Meghna Gulzar, Zoya Akhtar, Raj Kumar Hirani, Anurag Basu, Prakash Jha, Vir Vidhu Chopra and S.S. Rajamouli to name a few. I like them for various reasons. Some of them make realistic cinema, closer to the life we all live. Some make movies that are perceptible, some that are appreciable by not too many. But creativity should have no limits and should be the perspective of a writer and director to showcase their work that the world hasn’t seen and should see,” says Taher.

Ask him which Hindi film actor he would like to work with, and he says, “The king himself. I wish to work with him at some point in life. His growth and achievement to where he is today has inspired many. I am one such humble man too.”