Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur on Friday said cinema has the power to make people curious about different aspects of life, including science.
Kapur said films have the ability to generate curiosity about any scientific subject among the audiences.
The filmmaker said, “I remember watching Steven Spielberg’s work with ‘Jurassic Park’ films and I noticed that all over the world, everybody got suddenly interested in dinosaurs. That interest in dinosaurs has grown and never left us. So there is a saying that what films do is to fire your imagination.”
The veteran director was speaking at the virtual closing ceremony of the International Science Film Festival of India (ISFFI).
“Films, science, and technology have the ability to fire people’s imagination, especially in young filmmakers… Science and storytelling have always gone together and have always encouraged a scientific temper and also a temper of curiosity. That’s what stories do, they make you curious and imaginative,” Kapur added.
The filmmaker, known for making critically-acclaimed features like “Masoom”, “Mr. India”, “Bandit Queen” and “Elizabeth”, asserted that documentaries and films on scientific subjects or about personalities from the field of science are “very imaginative”.
“They can create a sense of imagination in those people who are actually watching them. They not only give them knowledge, as that is not the only reason we make films. The reason we make films and tell stories is to create and to fire the imagination of people, to make them curious,” Kapur further said.