Filmmaker Shaad Ali is most known for helming love stories like Saathiya (2002), Bunty Aur Babli (2005), Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (2007) and Ok Jaanu (2017). With Soorma he is venturing into a hugely different territory, that of a sports biopic. The film is based on the life of India’s star hockey player Sandeep Singh.
However, Ali says that he didn’t feel any difference while shooting for Soorma. “Every film is different. You want to do different films. It comes with its own assets and liabilities. You have to deal with that. This is a biopic so you have added responsibilities. It’s not challenging. It’s just that you have to be little responsible because the family is there and you have met them. You need to be as honest as you can be to the film and [its] characters,” he said.
For the filmmaker, the biggest challenge was writing the film. “The most challenging thing was to write the film; to put this story together. We had no idea who this person is, where he came from, what was his involvement in the sport is and what happened to him. I think to put that together was a big deal and effort. You have to start from scratch. You have to meet Sandeep and his family. Your hardwork is done in the writing and then it’s up to the actors to take it forward,” Ali added.
Ali also didn’t feel the need to take any cinematic liberties as far as the story is concerned. “I don’t think one has to do that [take cinematic liberties]. There is no law as such. We haven’t taken much cinematic liberty. It also depends on how dramatic the original story is. If your story has no drama then you might have to take liberties. His [Singh’s] real life story has so much drama that it sounds mann ghadan [fictional]. So you don’t need to do anything in it,” he said.
Starring Diljit Dosanjh and Taapsee Pannu, Soorma will be released on 13 July.