Jogi Film’s Director Ali Abbas Zafar Says, “The Film Wouldn’t Have Been Possible Without Diljit Dosanjh”
The Diljit Dosanjh-starring film Jogi was launched last Friday to favourable reviews and admiration from audiences. The movie has received praise for its authenticity and compassion as well as Diljit’s performance. It portrays a fictional drama centred around the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi in 1984. According to the movie’s director, Ali Abbas Zafar, the movie wouldn’t have been possible without its star. In an interview with Hindustan Times, Ali discusses Diljit, the origins of Jogi, and the difficulties in producing it.
Even though Delhi experienced widespread violence against the Sikh community that year, the majority of films on the 1984 riots were produced in Punjabi cinema and as a result, were staged in Punjab. Ali discusses the decision to situate Jogi in the capital city as someone who attended Delhi College and lived there. Delhi was by much the epicentre. The three days following October 31 are when our story is set (the assassination of PM Indira Gandhi). Any investigation you do will reveal what transpired throughout those three days. Sukhmani Sadana, one of my co-writers, is Sikh, so she had a wealth of anecdotes from her relatives and close friends. We started drafting the story in that manner, he claims.
The film Jogi can be challenging to see because of its frank portrayal of intergroup violence. It never becomes graphic, but it does become unsettling. It is important to bring up your sensitive side when dealing with issues like this. It’s a delicate balance to strike between the severity of the incident and the compassion required to convey it. You need to be wise enough to establish an environment where people experience the sensations instead of looking for the visuals in any work of art that is based on something that represents a murder of mankind, such as the World Wars, Partitioning, or ’84. Even in Jogi, our initial concept was to foster an environment where individuals could comprehend what had occurred to a community. It is highly psychological. Although it is visual, you must feel how radically the situation has altered within that 15 minutes because it must sink into your gut. The narration is not voyeuristic; it is done for the emotions.
Jogi’s titular hero is played by Diljit Dosanjh, and according to Ali, the movie could not have moved forward with any other actor—certainly not anyone beyond the Sikh community. This was quite evident to me. I informed my co-producer Himanshu that Diljit is the only person who can tell this narrative well. Nobody else is capable of doing this. We cannot convey this subject by using a non-Sikh actor to play a Sikh role. Only someone from that community, who is aware of this character’s journey, could have made this story progress. When Ali considered approaching Diljit for the movie, he was already filming in Canada. A two-page plot was all we had at the time, according to the director. I took a call to Diljit and he heard the narration, which was not longer than five to six minutes. Exhaling deeply, he said, “I’m doing it.”.
“A film like this should be told not just to Indians but also international audiences,” Ali says. Today, there is a significant international audience for Indian films, as well as a sizable Indian audience abroad. And that is how Netflix got involved. Similarly, this is why Hindi was chosen over Punjabi for the film’s language instead. Diljit is a huge star in Punjab, but the director continues, “We were very clear that the picture had to be on a medium that exposes it to a wider audience.
Right now, Jogi is available on Netflix.
