During a session on 'The contemporary filmmakers of different generations' at the ongoing 50th edition of International Film Festival of India (IFFI), he mentioned that he likes to watch films in foreign languages.
Asked if they are better than the ones made in Hindi, Imtiaz told : "Yeah, I think films in foreign languages are very realistic, well made and artistic so we enjoy that. More than the language, I follow directors. I used to watch David Lean's films."
"As for Hindi, I really like Bimal Roy, Vijay Anand, Raj Kapoor. Right now (contemporary filmmakers)...all are friends only, so I watch all their films. Both the Anurags (Basu and Kashyap), Zoya (Akhtar), Raju Hirani and many others."
He is also proud of his contemporary Hindi filmmakers as they have been able to characterise people "far more realistically" than before.
"People in cinema, whether they are heroes or not, are very believable and realistic now," said the 'Rockstar' director.
But there is one thing that he misses from the eighties and nineties eras of filmmaking.
"They (directors of eighties and nineties) had certain shot breakdown which was unbreakable. They shot their film in a very intense way and it was almost dependent upon a lot of people but no one. Nobody could break the intensity of the scene.
"They dealt with far too many elements in one scene, if you see Rahul Rawail's film or JP Dutta's films, or Ramesh Sippy's 'Sholay', you will see that there is acting, characterisation, costuming, action, galloping horses, people falling and yet the emotion of the scene was also (there). What I feel is (they had) David Lean touch in a movie. Sometimes I wish I could make a movie which had all of that," said Imtiaz, known for making movies with intense love stories.
He is currently working on his next feature film.
"We are not talking about this film except for the fact that it is releasing in February," he said about his new project.
"I hope that people enjoy the film because I am very intrigued by how love relationships happen today and the baggage that they carry from the previous times, and this movie is about that," said Imtiaz, who has always written stories for his own directorials.
The director has also served as a writer on films that have not been helmed by him. Would he like others to write stories for him? "No, I find that I am far more interested in telling the stories that...Even 'Cocktail' I had written and not directed. I had written it to direct it actually. I am a writer-director. I like to do both," he said.
"Cocktail", a 2012 romantic comedy-drama film, was directed by Homi Adajania and was a huge hit.
( With inputs from IANS )