Writer-director Anurag Kashyap is proud of his DVD collection. He has collected them from all over the world, in many different languages. The avid collector does not know how many DVDs or Blu-rays he owns because he lost count after 10,000.
Speaking to The Indian Express, he said DVDs should exist in some form because there are people who want physical copies of movies. He also mentioned his fear that OTT platforms will someday stop publishing certain films.
The filmmaker collects old classics, silent films, and any other movie he can get his hands on. He is planning on creating a home theatre with a sound system and acoustic curtains.
Recounting the time when his obsession with DVDs started, he said it was filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra who gifted his first DVD player. While shooting for Mission Kashmir in 2000, he asked Chopra to buy him a DVD player instead of the signing amount because they used to be expensive. Chopra bought him a device costing Rs 22,000.
It is also a way for Kashyap to pay back film directors because he only buys DVD versions of films that he has already watched and liked. He added that Indian stores rarely sell DVDs nowadays which is why he asks people to get them from abroad.
For fellow collectors, he shared that cleaning the discs every two years is necessary because the moisture will start affecting them after 4-5 years. The director is also adamant about not lending his DVDs.
While he is disappointed that the time of DVDs is gone, he is sure that Blu-rays are here to stay because they are even available in 4K now.