Gangubai Kathiawadi received 8-min standing ovation from 800 people at Berlin Film Festival: Sanjay Leela Bhansali

Alia Bhatt’s latest release Gangubai Kathiawadi, adapted from one of the chapters of noted author Hussain Zaidi’s book, Mafia Queens of Mumbai, had its world premiere at the 72nd edition of the Berlin International Film Festival. The film, helmed Sanjay Leela Bhansali, not only had 800 people in the Berlin theatre enjoy the dance and song sequences of the magnum opus but it also made them give it a standing ovation.
Talking to Subhash K Jha for Rediff, Bhansali confessed that he had no plans to re-watch his own film at the Berlinale 2022, but once his movies started playing, he couldn’t help but sit for the entire duration of the film. He couldn’t “take his eyes off from it and was in awe of his own film”.

He said, “Birju Maharaj’s, Lataji’s and my mother’s blessings are with me and my hard work. The audience at Berlin clapped at my song Dholida. They enjoyed the music, humour and anger of my film. They clapped for eight minutes after the film was over.” And once the filmmaker saw the standing ovation, “it made all the pain and effort worth the while” for him.
Now, since the film has opened in the Indian theaters as well, it has been receiving a warm response from the film critics.

It revolves around Gangubai who is forced into prostitution and becomes a strong personality of Kamathipua, the red-light drict of Mumbai.
The Indian Express’ film critic Shubhra Gupta praised Alia Bhatt’s portrayal of Gangubai. Calling the film a ‘spectacle’, she wrote in her review, “Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s latest is the kind of old-fashioned dialogue-heavy, sentiment-on-sleeve film which Bollywood is forgetting how to make.”