Highlights from Sharmeen Obaid's chat with Karan Johar, including his take on Fawad Khan

Yesterday Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy sat down with Bollywood producer Karan Johar at the World Economic Forum in Davos for an intense one-on-one conversation about film, fame, society and the arts.

It was a landmark meeting between two industry giants who are similar in how their success has forced them to contend with both praise and criticism. Their conversation couldn't escape a mention of recent tension between India and Pakistan especially with regard to the two nations' film industries, famously illustrated in Karan Johar's public pledge to refrain from working with Pakistani talent even though he'd just featured Fawad Khan in Kapoor & Sons and cast him in his upcoming film Ae Dil Hai Mushkil.

Karan tip-toed around questions that referred to the above... but that's not all they talked about.

Choice outtakes from their chat are below.

On Sharmeen's Oscar win:

Karan Johar: "I remember your acceptance speech [at the Oscars] Sharmeen and I remember feeling really, really proud as a filmmaker that your film travelled the way it did, the point and perspective it made, and more than anything else... I think the result of what happened... that's what every artist aspires for, the impact of his or her work."

Also read: I want my work to make people uncomfortable, to make them think: Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy

On Karan's Bollywood career:

Sharmeen Obaid: "Your films made me realise what love was, and that's a really powerful thing for women in our part of the world. I felt you told stories that allowed us to dream, whether it was about love, or about religion or about sexual orientation -- all of the things we felt and wanted you were telling us on the big screen. In Pakistan when I was growing up there was no film industry of our own to speak of, so Bollywood was our film industry. So thank you for all of the memories you have given us."

On Sharmeen's childhood

Sharmeen Obaid: "I'm the eldest of six children, five of them girls, so my father was on the elusive chase for a son for a very long time. I was a pain in the a** since I was 10 years old. I was asking difficult questions all the time, my mother was very busy raising children so she didn't want to answer all my questions, so she encouraged me to write for newspapers when I was very very young... by the time I was 17 I was already pretty much doing what I'm doing now, which is pissing a lot of people off. My very first brush with that was when I did this article for which I went undercover. The article came out on the morning of Eid and my father had woken up and gone to say his prayers and he came back and said: 'What the hell have you done today?'"

"Clearly the people I had written about had wanted to teach me a lesson and has spray painted my name and my families name across my gate and my house.... But my father told me it was OK to tell the truth and that someone was always going to be standing around me if I chose that path."

On the nature of film-making:

Karan Johar: I was swept by the narrative structure of film... you can create a world, you can destroy it, you can do what you want with it and serve it to people just the way you like.

Sharmeen Obaid: I think [of] filmmakers [as] pregnant because you carry this thing in you, nobody else knows about it, you hold it close to you, groom it, then you put it out in the world and hope the world will embrace it just the way you embrace your kid."

On facing criticism:

Sharmeen Obaid: Initially, very early on in my career, when I would face criticism it would make me upset. And I'd wonder why because I wasn't the one doing the atrocity, I was the one who was showcasing it so that it would stop. I was doing something that I believed in, that was close to my heart."

"Then over the years I began to realise people speak out because they know you have a voice, they know that you have an impact. So they want to drown out your voice. I hate indifference, that you do too. I'd rather have people love me or hate me, and not be indifferent. And so in Pakistan, people either love me or they hate me. And the ones that get angry about what I do are really misdirecting the anger because the anger should be about the issues. Who wants to have acid violence against women, who wants to have honour killings, or violence in general. And so now it doesn't matter to me anymore. Criticism doesn't faze me. I know my work is having an impact."

Also read: We need to change the conversation about Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy. Here's how.

Karan Johar: "When you talk about criticism I completely feel connected. I feel like you're my soulmate in that respect because I feel like when I wake up to that Twitter trolling or that abuse... Initially it was anger that moved to complete indifference and now it's amusement. Like, now if I'm not criticised in the morning or trolled or abused to death I feel like it's something missing in the day."

"Faceless people say the nastiest things. And like eventually, they may think whatever about your life or your cinema or your sexuality. Sometimes you may give an opinion and they'll just be like 'Gay' and I wonder how that's a response."

"You feel like you have to build an armor of steel, because, we're in the business where we make movies. We're opinion makers as a result of being filmmakers... What amazes me, Sharmeen, is the way your approach is and your demeanour, considering that you have to go back home and combat much more than I do. You've been much braver than I am."

Read on: Karan Johar just wrote an open letter to his homophobic Twitter trolls

On women and film:

Sharmeen Obaid: "My greatest asset is that I'm a woman."

Karan Johar: "But you don't play that card -- the woman card?"

Sharmeen Obaid: "Hell yes! Of course I play the woman card! When you can play the woman card, play the woman card."

Karan Johar: "I think it's amazingly honest that you said that. Very few women admit to that."

On the Bollywood ban and Fawad Khan:

Sharmeen Obaid: "We as artists have to be true to our hearts... And do the things that we want to do. I really hope that someday I can go on the big screen and watch Fawad Khan directed by you again."

Karan Johar: "I'm trying to process how to answer that... You know what I went through. It was a tough time for me. I have a great regard for talent and I have a great regard for Fawad Khan's talent which is why he's been in two of our films. The circumstances... we don't know where we're heading, and I think all great actors should find the best platforms and just like you I hope Fawad Khan finds the best platform because he's a terrific actor. Having said that, I never want to go through what I went the again. Neither the situation, the circumstances, nor the apology. None of that is what made me feel comfortable. I felt weak, vulnerable, victimised, and as a filmmaker I don't want to feel that. I just want to feel creatively liberated."