Sujoy’s tribute to his father Joy Mukherjee, Jaan Hai tu!

Director-Producer-Actor #SujoyMukherjee belongs to an illustrious family. Film making runs in his blood. His Grandfather Padma Shri #SashadharMukherjee established himself in the Hindi film industry. Sashadhar Mukherjee’s sons are #ShomuMukherjee, #DebMukherjee, #JoyMukherjee, #SubbirMukherjee, #RonoMukherjee and some of the Grandchildren are Kajol Mukherjee, Rani Mukherjee, Tanishaa Mukherjee, Ayan Mukherjee, Monjoy Mukherjee and Sujoy Mukherjee. Sujoy Mukherjee’s father is Joy Mukherjee and Ashok Kumar, Kishore Kumar are his ‘Nana-Mamas’. Our Sr. Editor Keerti Kadam states that Sujoy made a short film “Ab Mujhe Udnaa Hai” which has won 40 Prestigious Awards including “Dadasaheb Phalke Award 2019”. His other short films “#Umeed” and “#ZindagiAnmolHai” won 7 and 35 Awards respectively.

he lockdown imposed due to Corona pandemic had a negative impact on many. Sujoy conceptualised and made a song ‘Humara Hindustan’ to spread positivity amongst people of India which received huge response. The Current Government’s official social media page too uploaded the same. Sujoy is a multi-faceted personality. Apart from producing and directing he is into writing too and is always seen passionately talking about his films. Again he is one of the Owners and Directors of “Filmalaya”, a Film Studio in Mumbai which was built by his Grandfather Sashadhar Mukherjee. He, with his elder brother Monjoy Mukherjee, has modernised it so as to suit the new generation of film makers’ needs. Being a Producer-Director himself he understands the mindset of Directors and has incorporated state of the art facilities for the smooth filming in his studio.

Sujoy Mukherjee is extremely in awe of his Legendary Father late “Joy Mukherjee” and rightly so. His father had narrated an one-liner to him and now as a tribute to his father he is making a film titled “Jaan Hai Tu”. Sujoy is handling the affairs of his father’s production house “Joy Mukherjee Productions” and has produced his films under the banner. “Nachaniya”, a film written, produced and directed by him was well received by the viewers of “Tamasha OTT”.

Talking to our Sr Editor Keerti Kadam, Sujoy spoke at length about his upcoming film “Jaan Hai Tu”. He said, “The thought of this film comes from my father late Shri Joy Mukherjee. He had narrated me a story with a title ‘Message In The Bottle’. I was toying with his idea for quite some time. Then when I met my favourite writers “Sunil Kapoor” and “Sudeep Kapoor”, I narrated them this story and they developed it and came up with a beautiful script. It’s an emotional-romantic-drama. It conveys feelings of a young boy who is unable to get over his girlfriend. He is a struggling actor and she supports him lovingly. After a few years she’s a successful business woman and he’s still a struggling actor which creates rift in them. The girl wants to be practical whereas the boy is unable to come to the terms of a break up. There’s a back story of a Colonel who has written a love letter for his girlfriend and putting it in a bottle thrown in the sea. There are interesting characters around these principle characters and everything is interlinked”, said Sujoy.

He added, “If there’s sincerity and you truly love a person then the ‘message’ you send him/her will reach it’s destination no matter what happens. In this film, a dejected lover had sent a message to his beloved through a bottle thrown in the sea. How it reaches the ‘Destination’ is the crux of the story.” Sujoy maintains that a lot of people will relate to this story. The star-cast of “Jaan Hai Tu”, which is being produced under the banner Joy Mukherjee Productions, consists of Vivek Raj Sharma, Jasmine Grover, Ruchitaa Pareek, Anil Dhawan, Siddharth Dhawan, Helen Fonseca and Vaishnavi MacDonald.

Talking about Multiple Award winning ‘Ab Mujhe Udnaa Hai’, Sujoy said, “This is a real story and my dear friend was a victim. I won’t reveal her name but she’s from a well off family in Pune and was a budding choreographer. When she was returning from a discotheque she was molested by a few druken guys and they almost raped her. But she was saved and brought home. The story of agony begins here. When a girl is molested/raped not only the girl, but her entire family experiences that filthy feeling. Like most of the cases, she too went into depression. When I called her up, asking why she had stopped communicating she admitted that she’s under deep depression. I rushed to Pune and spoke to her at length. I encouraged her to ‘Rise’ again and I decided to make a film on this incident.”

“Every day, molestations are happening, all over the world, throughout the day. I read in Sonam Kapoor’s interview that she was a victim of molestation in one of the theatres. When someone is molesting a girl, he is molesting the whole family. The molesters were nabbed but justice was delayed. People loved the message conveyed in this film and is loved from all quarters of the society.” On nepotism, Sujoy said, “Frankly, I am tired of talking about this. You have to be talented even if you are a son\daughter of a famous star. In fact it’s double difficult to prove himself as he is carrying on us of his father’s name. Again who should invest money on whom is an investor’s prerogative.”

When asked about memories of Joy Mukherjee, Sujoy said, “There are a plenty. I learnt film making from him. He always used to say that, you should make films for the audiences as they spend their hard earned money for your bread and butter. I remember despite being a huge star he used to walk down the alley to drop me at the school bus. Incidentally the same road is named Joy Mukherjee Road. Dilip Kumar, Saira Banu and my mother Neelam Mukherjee attended the road naming ceremony. Other incident is when he whisked me off to Switzerland within minutes. My brother, sister and mother had gone for a holiday. I was getting bored at home and looking at my long face, he said, “Pack up, we’re going out”. Next thing I realised that I was in Switzerland! He was like a friend and he took me around Switzerland’s night life.”

Director, Producer, Actor Sujoy Mukherjee is the Chairman of Joy Mukherjee Productions and Director of Filmalaya Studios.