Shekhar Kapur Plans AI-Focused Film School In Dharavi

India-West News Desk

MUMBAI – Veteran filmmaker Shekhar Kapur is set to launch an AI-focused film school in Mumbai’s Dharavi slum district. According to Variety, the initiative builds on Kapur’s long-running work with The Dharavi Project, a collaboration with Oscar-winning composer A.R. Rahman. This project, focused on hip-hop and rap in Dharavi, has already helped launch several students to national stardom, in partnership with Universal Music.

Kapur shared with Variety, “Those kids have become national stars. For years, people have told me, ‘Please start a film school.’ I’m going to start a film school in Dharavi, and the reason is because I think that Artificial Intelligence is a new push in cinema.”

He described AI as the most “democratic technology” of our time, explaining, “AI is the most democratic technology that has come in, despite what everybody says. Because I know that my future competition is not with the biggest directors in the world, it is with this 15-year-old girl who lives in a slum in Mumbai, who understands prompting and will be able to create one-minute, two-minute, 10-minute films just by sitting at the computer… and will be better than me.”

Kapur believes that with access to AI technology, anyone could become “the greatest filmmaker in the world.” The exact timeline for the school’s launch is yet to be confirmed.

Meanwhile, Kapur is preparing for the sequel to his hit 1983 film Masoom. He revealed, “The script is ready, and I will start shooting in February or March. I was traveling from Dubai to Delhi, and I realized I had left the ‘Masoom 2’ script on the plane seat. But I got it back, and a flight attendant wrote me a note saying that Masoom was a very good film, and this one will be just as good. So, see, it came back even after being left behind—there must be something to it. It’s destiny.”

The sequel promises a fresh storyline while retaining the core values that made the original Masoom beloved. The star-studded cast will include Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Manoj Bajpayee, and Kapur’s daughter, Kaveri, among others.