UK Asian Film Festival 2026 – Interview With Director Muzaffar Ali (Umrao Jaan)

Memoirs of a Geisha was a best selling book which was turned into a successful film in 2005, starring Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi and Ken Watanabe. It tells the story of an impoverished girl in Japan who is sold to a geisha house and becomes a celebrated geisha.

But, long before Memoirs of a Geisha, there was an 1899 Urdu novel (since translated into many languages, including English) called Umrao Jaan Adha.

It was the purported true story of a young girl in India who was sold to a ‘Kota’ a house visited by wealthy men to see dancing girls. Like the geisha culture, the houses of dancing girls disliked being described as upmarket brothels. Although there was a transactional element to the interactions between the men and the women in both cultures, those involved preferred to see their establishments as places of culture, art, music and poetry.

In the Urdu novel, one such woman, known by her ‘stage name’ as Umrao Jaan from 19th century Lucknow recounts her story to the author, a young journalist.

In 1981, the main story from the book was turned into a film starring Bollywood goddess, Rekha. She won a National Award for the lead role, the Indian equivalent of an Oscar. The film also won many other awards and is considered one of the most exquisite masterpieces of Indian cinema. A 4K restored version of the film will be screened at the BFI IMAX on 4th May as part of the UK Asian Film Festival 2026. The sold out screening will feature a Q&A with the film’s director Muzaffar Ali.

Last week, I had the great pleasure of interviewing him. I can honestly say I could have listened to the man all day! Muzaffar Ali is not only a film director but a painter, designer and an artist in the true sense of the word. Erudite and eloquent, he, sadly, is a breed of filmmaker that is increasingly rare in the business.

(Here comes the science part – A 4K restoration is the process of scanning original film negatives (usually 35mm) at pixel resolution—four times the detail of standard HD—to clean, repair, and color-correct them frame-by-frame. This meticulous process removes dirt and scratches, producing a sharper, more vibrant, and authentic version of a film).

Q: How important for cinema is this kind of restoration of classic films?

A: In India, facilities to maintain negatives simply don’t exist. No laboratory is keeping the negatives, no producer is keeping them. The negatives that are kept are not done so with care. The negatives I finally obtained of Umrao Jaan were totally congealed. We had to go to several different sources to put bits of film together. This can be a difficult process anyway, as film can be lost or the damage can be irreversible. So, to be able restore this film was so necessary. It was both important and timely. I believe all films should go through this process. Once a film is digitised, it gets a timeless new lease of life. Another advantage is that when restoring a film you can also calibrate and improve it. It makes such a difference.

Q: You started in the Indian film industry when it was called that. Now it’s widely known as Bollywood. What’s your view of this nod to Hollywood as if the huge Indian industry was just an offshoot of it?

A: It should actually be called the Hindi film industry. The Indian industry is a much bigger umbrella. It includes Tamil films and Bengali films, for example. But the Hindi films are big enough to be given a name of their own. So, Hindi cinema is a better term. ‘Bollywood’ is like someone is making a joke about the industry. It doesn’t sound right to me.

Q: I’ve never been able to establish whether the story of Umrao Jaan is a true one. Do you know if it is?

A: It’s true for me! I made it a truth for me. That allowed me to inhabit the world it spoke of and to, in turn, create a world I could bring other people in to. When I was making the film it was very real for me.

Q: What drew you to the story?

A: The first draw was that it had the resonance of the city of Lucknow. That aligned with my DNA. It was my culture, my language, my way of life, my memories and the film was my opportunity to give all of that representation on screen. The idea of recreating this world I knew first became ingrained in my mind when I was working in Calcutta, in advertising, with Mr. Ray (Director Satyajit Ray, considered one of the masters of cinema). 

So, when I went to Bombay and stepped into films, I wanted to step into my own world. I didn’t want to go into the Bombay genre of filmmaking. I wanted to create the world that I remembered and the memories I had. I tried, over time, to create a movement of Urdu films of Lucknow, connected to my own experiences. All the films I’ve made have been steps into that culture. Unfortunately, Urdu films are mostly lost now. There is no Urdu film industry in India.

Q: There are many Indian films about Kotas and dancing girls but they mostly paint a glamourised and sanitised picture of that life. Your film gives a much grittier glimpse into the world. Was that a deliberate choice? 

A: I felt dance was a very sacred thing. It’s an expression of art that is close to the heart. It’s an organic extension of the heart into art. Umrao Jaan used the art of dance to please others but it was done in a very sophisticated way. It was not a titillating dance form. It was an organic way of expressing poetry. For me, it was the story of a journey; the journey of a poetess, a woman who was finding meaning in her life through words, in rhyme and rhythm. As such, that had to be very stylised. She had to be someone you could meet and understand her story and her life. 

I think, in Bombay films, in telling the stories of such women there is too much division in the behind the scenes work that creates the story. It’s like treating dance as something that the dance instructor, on set, deals with. Whereas for me, I tried to live in the artistry of everything that was in the film. I tried to live in art of others as well as my own. So, If I was overseeing the music in the film, I was the singer. When I was overseeing the dancing, I was the dancer. If I was dealing with the cinematography, I was the cinematographer. I lived the cinematic expression of each art form and maybe that’s why a style was maintained throughout this film that isn’t there in others about the same subject.

Q: You bring an artist’s eye to film. I read, in a magazine, that you were involved in every aspect of the film making, even choosing the fabrics that were used for the costumes. Is that true? And what was the look of the film that you wanted to create?

A: For me the most important thing in cinema is the language of costumes. If you don’t get that right there is a total disconnect in the whole film, like everyone is speaking different languages. For each scene I had to consider the time of the day and the time of the year it was set in. I had to be aware of the character’s state of mind and the dictates of the culture of the time. 

The language of clothes is a very strong one. It’s an understanding of clothing that I inherited from my family. I remember my father, from 1952 onwards, started to wear hand woven, hand spun clothes. So, even from childhood, I understood the difference between handwoven clothing and mill made items or the clothes he bought from Europe. He made a conscious switch in textiles and I later understood how  textiles are a very tactile extension of the cinematic expression. Light and movement does something to the textiles. You have to be able  to understand that and use it on film. But you have to feel it in your system. If you can’t do it, you have to hire other people to do it and to understand it from them. In preparing for the film I opened the old trunks of my mother. I remembered from my childhood how carefully she had packed each item of clothing to put it away. It made a huge impact on a child’s mind. It taught me about colour which is also very important. I was able to consider the natural dyes that would have been used in that period and what time does to colour and how it changes it. I’m a painter and colours are a continuous language that empowers me as much as I use my power to create the painting.

Q: Why didn’t you make more films in your career? 

A: People don’t pay for that level of effort anymore. There’s a dignity in making films when you’re allowed to put so much effort into each department of the movie. This dignity is lost when the main issue becomes money, how much can be spent, how much it will make. Films are an expensive business. It’s not like painting which is something I can do all the time, when I feel like it. This is probably where the Bollywood style of filmmaking and focus on money comes in and differed from what I like to do.

Q: Rekha is a superstar in Hindi cinema. But you brought something out in her, in this film, that no other film has done.  What did she bring to the film and what made you choose her? 

A: She had the right chemistry, the right alchemy, the right eyes, the right body language, the right talent and most of all the right attitude and approach. She realised what was coming her way. She knew what was needed of her to respond to what was coming her way. People so often live in a hurry but this had to be a very delicate process; playing a character like this. Something was going to change in her from her performance in this film and she understood what was going to happen to her because of it. She brought feeling, body movement and so much to the role. She came with no conditions. And she allowed Lucknow to grow into her and for her to become one with that culture and that character. Very few artists can do this. 

As we say in India, it takes two hands to clap and the making of this film was going to affect us both. So, I too have to have the right chemistry with an actress to be able to allow her to drown in the character and the film I’m making. The artist has to have that sense of surrender so that she can sink into it as much as she can.

Q: One of the most beloved aspects of this film is the soundtrack. Even people who may not have seen the film know the songs. The playback singer was the now late, very great, incomparable Asha Bhosle. She could evoke so many emotions with her voice. She could be a young playful girl, or the vamp or she could bring out the tragedy in a story like Umrao Jaan. What did you want her to bring to the film?

A: I wanted her to be the voice of Lucknow and of Umrao Jaan. I wanted her to carry the feelings of the lyrics and to be the spine of those feelings. 

When it came to the music, we all worked at different levels of it. The lyric writer created the trajectory of the feelings. The music director worked on the melodies that needed to be memorable. Asha ji knew the challenge we all laid for her to bring it all together. She made me read the book to her 3 or 4 times and she knew she had to bring something special to this film. She would ask me questions, simple questions because she wanted to take in the culture of the story completely. She went the extra mile. She tried that culture on for herself and went into the zone. She was so inspired by the character that even the song writers were taken aback. I asked her to sing a note lower than she normally did because I wanted her to create  the sound of the the intensity and depth the character demanded. 

What she did is the single dimension that rises above everything and will remain alive forever. Whenever people speak of Umrao Jaan, her songs will be the first thing associated with it. That is what she achieved. 

We all became totally engrossed in the process of making this film. We lived it, we ate, slept, breathed it. That kind of process is so totally not Bollywood. People are very time conscious in Bollywood. We didn’t want that. We wanted a timelessness about the whole thing. We were creating something that was coming out of our very souls. 

Q: Where do you stand on the issue of watching films on the big screen in a cinema with other people versus watching it alone on a small screen?

A: Cinema is a theatre where you enjoy a film with other people. You watch it with them collectively. If someone leaves the cinema, you’ve stopped watching it with them. Or if someone walks in late, you begin to watch the film from that point with them. It’s a strange thing that happens in that darkened room. It’s an occasion for everyone there.

On the small screen you don’t take the film as seriously. You don’t give it your total attention. If a film is on TV at night, you’re in the sleep zone. You’re watching it to go to sleep. You’re not in the ‘film zone’. 

This means a lot of films then are not memorable. They become very samey. To be memorable, a film needs to be either part of a collective experience or a strong 1-1 experience. To make a film truly memorable, you should try a one-to-one experience. Watch a film alone in a big theatre where 500 people would normally sit. There is no greater luxury, no bigger trip than to do that.