It was minus 20 degrees temperature in New York and there was a long queue outside The Museum of Moving Image, New York, on 25th of February to watch their admired composer on-screen. “Jai Ho,” the 85 minute film traces milestones in personal and professional life of A.R. Rahman. Time magazine has placed him in its list of World's Most Influential People; the recording and mixing studio attached to the backyard of his house is one of the most advanced studios in the world; his prolific body of work, over 120 film scores worldwide at last count in a career that spans two decades, makes him one of the world's all-time top selling recording artists.
The film is not a biography of Rahman. The film follows his ‘style’, a fusion of eastern sensibilities and western technology. The connoisseurs of music, who extol Rahman as India’s contribution to the global music scene, are looking forward to catch rare glimpses of his life coupled with revealing interviews with his collaborators. “Jai Ho” is the first ever definitive documentary film on the living legend Rahman. The film is produced by Public Service Broadcasting Trust (psbt.org), External Publicity and Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs, government of India. Director of the film is Umesh Aggarwal who has won many awards for his films, including National Film Award. Last year he won the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Award for excellence in Journalism. The Indian premiere of the film was held at the Indian Habitat Centre, New Delhi on 7th of April and was received with a standing ovation. “Jai Ho” is selected for the prestigious Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles popularly known as IFFLA.
The film is shot in Los Angeles, London, Chennai and Mumbai. Besides his family and friends the film features Rahman’s multifarious collaborators– Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, Danny Boyle, Shekhar Kapur, Mani Ratnam, Ram Gopal Varma, Subhash Ghai, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Alka Yagnik, Hari Haran and Bharat Bala. It’s not a biography and is titled famously after the soundtrack that won him the first ever Music Oscar for India. From jamming in a super group with Mick Jagger; belting out dreams for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway drama; performing with Michael Jackson and Friends; composing for Vanessa May’s album; rummaging through the vast archives of Chinese and Japanese Classical music to compose for a mandarin language film, Rahman has catapulted Indian film Music to the world stage –single handedly.
