Ali Abbas Zafar reveals directing Salman Khan's 'Bharat' was 'like making 7 different films'

Now that the release date of Salman Khan’s film ‘Bharat’ is coming closer, director Ali Abbas Zafar has opened up on the film and how he managed to extract different looks from Khan.

Speaking to Mid-day about the film, Ali shared that directing Bharat was "like making seven different films." He said that a lot went into creating the film and its time period - from the Partition to present day India. Watch the trailer here.

He revealed that he spent a lot of time with production designer Rajnish Hedao and stylists Alvira Agnihotri and Ashley Robello -- to finalise the looks that would appropriately fit the narrative of the film. He said that they spent over one-and-a-half years to get the research on point. Getting the Partition look correct was the hardest for them and they found help in Richard Attenborough's ‘Gandhi’.

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He said, "We shot the sequence over 10 days in Punjab, in the freezing cold. The scene required us to recreate a station near Lahore, replete with a steam engine."

"Of the five functioning steam engines in the country, we had one brought to Punjab. The art department worked on it for four days to make it resemble those from the Northern Frontier Railways of 1947," he continued.

‘Bharat’ is slated to release on June 5 and will also star Disha Patani, Tabu and Sunil Grover in key roles and is based on the South Korean film, ‘Ode To My Father’.