Back in May of last year, Apple released Those That Follow, a Thai horror short film by director Parkpoom Wongpoom, shot on the iPhone 13 Pro. This year, they’re continuing their tour around Asia with a new short film shot on the iPhone 14 Pro, a Bollywood flick by renowned Indian director Vishal Bhardwaj, the man behind movies such as Maqbool, Omkara, Haider and 7 Khoon Maaf.
Titled Fursat, it’s a Bollywood-style musical with an underlying theme of love. The story revolves around Nishant, a young archaeologist who beings to see visions of the future when an Doordarshak, an ancient relic, suddenly comes to life. Nishant goes on to lose sight of the present due to these visions, and ends up being late to his own engagement party to Diya. His childhood sweetheart then goes on to end their relationship.
Nishant’s visions of the future continues however, and eventually begins seeing visions involving a burning train, a dangerous gangster and a threat to Diya’s life. He then goes off in an effort to save Diya, all while running out of time.
“A traditional film camera comes with 10 people, 3 attendants and 10 boxes of lenses… you can’t move around. You can’t be quick. iPhone liberated me in that sense.
Action mode was the biggest surprise for me. In Fursat, we’ve covered a lot of things in Action mode. If you see the raw footage, the visual is so jarring and destabilised. On Action mode, it’s so smooth. You have to see it to believe it.
I’ve never had this kind of scale in my films ever before. And this can tell you about the scale iPhone can achieve. As a device, it’s taking you out of the limitations which we had when we were growing up. We didn’t have the luxury which iPhone is providing every budding filmmaker today,” – Vishal Bhardwaj
Other big names besides Vishal Bhardwaj were involved, such as Ishaan—winner of the Best Actor award at the 5th International Bosphorous Film Festival for his role in Beyond the Clouds—and actress Wamiqa Gabbi. Also involved is Director of Photography Swapnil Sonawane, who is best known for his work on Sacred Games.
If you’d like to check out Fursat for yourself, you can watch it below:
