20 years of Dil Chahta Hai: Farhan Akhtar, Aamir Khan share their thoughts on the milestone

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For two decades, fans have wondered whether their favourite on-screen friends, Akash, Sid and Sameer from "Dil Chahta Hai" would reunite, this time perhaps to discuss mid-life crisis, but filmmaker Farhan Akhtar says he has not thought about continuing the film's storyline. Released on August 10, 2001, the film featured superstar Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Akshaye Khanna as three friends, focusing on the ups and downs in their equations with different approaches towards love and life.

The coming-of-age drama, also starring Preity Zinta, Sonali Kulkarni and Dimple Kapadia, marked Farhan's directorial debut and is regarded as a benchmark film on friendship. Superstar Aamir Khan goes nostalgic as his movie 'Dil Chahta Hai' is completing 20 years on August 10. For him it was one of the most memorable projects and a great working experience with director Farhan Akhtar and the entire cast.

He says: "'Dil Chahta Hai' is one of my most memorable films. I think the energies of all of us coming together (Farhan, Ritesh, Zoya, Akshaye, Saif, Sonali, Dimple, Preity, me, Javed Sahab, Shankar, Ehsan, Loy, Basin, Avan, Ravi, Suzanna, Nakul, Subaya, everyone... ), brought something very special to the film."

Aamir adds further that 'Dil Chahta Hai' was one of the movies that came out with a distinct story and Farhan Akhtar as a director has done an incredible job. "I loved the script, and I felt that Farhan was coming in with a completely fresh look at everything. His own vision and voice. As a result, 'Dil Chahta Hai' will always be remembered as a film that broke a lot of conventions in Indian cinema. I was working with a first-time director, but never once did it feel like that. Farhan was confident and personified. He was sure footed and completely in control. What a debut Farhan and Ritesh!" he concludes.

In an interview with PTI, Farhan said, unlike American filmmaker Richard Linklater's romantic film trilogy "Before", which follows the story of its lead characters after every nine years, he has no plans to chronicle where his characters are today. "There was never a point where I thought, let's discover where these three characters are 20 years later. I have not thought about that at all, to be honest," he said.

Ahead of the film's 20th anniversary, Farhan said he is filled with "many emotions". "The one that is at the forefront of it all is honestly just how fortunate I was to get such amazing people to collaborate on my first film. Then the film did what it had to do by itself, there is nothing you can do after you have made it. People make it their own and keep it alive."

The director-actor, now 47, said it was remarkable how "Dil Chahta Hai" has continued to remain relevant, reaching out to a newer audience every day. "The fact that subsequent generations keep discovering the film, keep relating to it in their own way is not something you can plan. It fills me with happiness and so much love that people have for something that I did two decades ago. That they remember it so fondly. I feel fortunate," he added.

The film also launched his production house, Excel Entertainment, co-founded by his close friend and producer Ritesh Sidhwani.

-With IANS, PTI inputs