Kabir Khan Excited About Directing Kapil Dev's Biopic '83', Says It's The Best Story He's Heard In His Life

In every filmmaker's life, there comes a project that becomes a life-changing one for innumerable reasons. For Kabir Khan who has made successful films like New York, Ek Tha Tiger and Bajrangi Bhaijaan, his upcoming film is no less than a challenge.?

It's a task that he has taken on himself and he's leaving no stone unturned in making sure he gives is best in the upcoming film.

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Kabir Khan has started preparation for his ambitious film 83 about Indian cricket team’s first World Cup win and the filmmaker says the challenge for him is to stay true to the real story and yet make it engaging.?

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The film chronicles India’s 1983 Cricket World Cup win under Kapil Dev’s captain-ship, when the team defeated West Indies in the final to clinch their first-ever World Cup trophy. Kabir was speaking on the sidelines of the ‘Word To Screen Market’ — an initiative by Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival with Star.

“The most challenging thing about ’83’ is how to stay true to an iconic event that everybody over 40 has seen and remembers, everybody who is a cricket buff knows about it. How to capture the feel and stay true to exactly what happened in the World Cup and yet tell the story engagingly,” Kabir said.

Kabir further also explained how he has to cater to two audiences: one who knows about the historic event and the other, who are not aware of how it all played out. He added,

“There are two audiences who are watching. One audience remembers it, who saw it. They can tell you where there were when India won the World Cup. The other is the huge audience, the youth who only know about the win but don’t know how it happened. How we were the most underrated team in the world, we were classic underdogs and people said why were we even invited. It’s an exciting story to tell the country."

Talking about another challenge that he faced, he added that it’s sad that there was very less material on 1983 World Cup and he had to visit the iconic Lord’s stadium in London to gather information. He said,

“It’s probably the best story I’ve heard in my life. But there’s a dearth of writing about it. I had to go to Lord’s library and search all the books to finally get all the material together. There’s such less material written on it despite the fact that it was such an iconic moment in the history of our country.”

The film stars Ranveer Singh. In fact speaking about the film last year, he had said,

“I was born into a time when cricket was the number one sport in our country. It was the biggest thing and I never knew the back story. When Kabir Khan told me I am making a film on 1983, I was like finally, the greatest sports story is coming to the screens."

The film will hit the screens in 2019.