50 yrs of YRF: Aditya Chopra remembers father Yash Chopra

Mumbai, Sep 27 On the completion of 50 years of Yash Raj Films, Chairman and filmmaker Aditya Chopra penned a note for his late father Yash Chopra , who had founded the production house.

“In 1970, my father Yash Chopra, left the security and comfort of his brother Mr. BR Chopra and formed his own company. Till then, he was a salaried employee of BR Films and didn’t own anything of his own. He did not know how to run a business and did not even have the basic knowledge of what goes into making a company. All he had was a strong belief in his talent and hardwork and a dream to be self-reliant.

“That conviction of a creative man backing nothing but himself and his art, gave birth to Yash Raj Films. Mr. V Shantaram, who owned Rajkamal Studios, graciously gave him a small room in his studio for his office. My father didn’t know then, that the small company that he started in a tiny room, would one day become the biggest film company of the Indian Film Industry,” Aditya wrote in a statement.

Sunday also marks the 88th birth anniversary of Yash Chopra.

Recalling the making the blockbuster film “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge”, Aditya Chopra added: “1995, as Yash Raj Films (YRF) entered its 25th year, my directorial debut film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge released. The historic success of that film gave me confidence to give wings to some crazy risky ideas that I had for the future of YRF. Besides the immense love that my father had for me, he now also had a lot of faith in my ideas because of the miraculous success of my film. I had foreseen the advent of international corporate studios coming to India and taking over our business.

“I wanted us to achieve a certain scale, so that we could retain our independence before they came in. My father contradicted his own conservative mindset and bravely indulged all my bold initiatives. And in a span of 10 quick years, we went from a film production house to India’s first fully integrated independent film studio,” he stated.

Chopra thanked every person associated with the company over the last five decades.

“Across 5 decades YRF, at its core, has been a traditional company with deep-rooted old world values and a conservative approach to business. This perfect balance of traditional and modern is what defines Yash Raj Films,” the statement read.

Yash Raj Films is best known for delivering numerous genre-defining and hit films over the decades including “Kabie Kabhie”, “Silsila”, “Chandni”, “Darr”, “Dil Toh Pagal Hai”, “Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge”, “Mohabbatein”, “Veer-Zaara”, “Bunty Aur Babli”, “Band Baaja Baaraat” and “Chak De India” among others.

The banner’s latest blockbuster production was the 2019 release, “War”, starring Hrithik Roshan, Tiger Shroff and Vaani Kapoor.