• Fursat is the first non-commercial film shot entirely on an iPhone in Bollywood.
• It pays homage to the cutting-edge video capabilities of the iPhone 14 Pro.
• Fursat is a Bollywood-style musical consisting of songs and dances that centres on an intense love story.

How excellent is the camera on the iPhone 14 Pro? For the better part of a decade, Digit’s Test Centre has lauded Apple’s iPhone as the de-facto video benchmark for judging every other smartphone’s video chops. In the year 2023, even the greatest in Bollywood will bet their careers on the iPhone’s video skills. The newest proof of this effort is ‘Fursat,’ a sci-fi time-traveling Bollywood-style musical directed by Vishal Bhardwaj and starring Ishaan Khattar and Wamiqa Gabbi.

Fursat is Bollywood’s first non-commercial film shot entirely on an iPhone — the iPhone 14 Pro — and produced wholly by Apple India. It is far from a hobbyist or amateur production, and much beyond any of Apple’s iPhone video advertising. It’s a tribute to the iPhone 14 Pro’s cutting-edge video capabilities, achieving the greatest levels of filmmaking in all their unbridled beauty.

In reality, the iPhone 14 Pro is Fursat’s unseen star act, helping to bring the Bollywood experience to life by not only meeting the demanding demands of award-winning film director Vishal Bhardwaj, but exceeding all of his expectations of what an iPhone 14 Pro could achieve.

“It’s quite incredible what this tiny handheld gadget that fits within your pocket is capable of capturing through its camera,” remarked Vishal Bhardwaj at a special media screening of Fursat in Mumbai. “As a technology, it liberates you from the constraints that we faced as children. “We didn’t have the luxury that iPhone gives every aspiring filmmaker today,” he added.

Apart from the iPhone 14 Pro’s overall great video capture experience, Fursat’s directors of photography, Vishal Bhardwaj and Swapnil Sonawane, were blown away by the iPhone’s Action and Cinematic modes. Fursat’s opening sequence depicts Ishan Khattar aggressively sprinting through an old, narrow market alley, crisscrossing through a tangle of street sellers and pedestrian activity, similar to Aladdin dashing through the streets of Agrabah. It immediately gets your heart racing, and Swapnil Sonawane’s behind-the-lens skill shines through, yet he humbly credits the scene’s great cinematography to the iPhone 14 Pro’s camera.

“I didn’t sure how much the iPhone could manage, but the way it handled it was really great,” said Swapnil Sonawane, who worked on Netflix’s Sacred Games as well as several other Bollywood productions. “I believe the most wonderful addition is Action mode. “With the iPhone 14 Pro in your hand and running with all your might gazing at the actor, one can obtain really steady shots, without an extra gimbal,” he remarked of how he recorded Ishaan Khatter’s running sequence in Fursat. Of course, we all know that Action mode enables up to 2.8K quality and 60 frames per second with Dolby Vision or ProRes recording for uncomplicated video shots.

The iPhone 14 Pro demonstrates its Cinematic mode, with a magnificent depth-of-field effect and automatic focus changes to the film in 4K at 30 fps, in another important ensemble moment of Fursat, shot exclusively in a train cabin, where the three characters of Fursat are face-to-face. “The way Cinematic mode switches focus is the way the focus puller would, it’s an emotive shift focus,” Swapnil Sonawane said of the iPhone 14 Pro.

In addition to the Action and Cinematic modes, there are several macro and wide-angle photos, demonstrating the entire range of the iPhone 14 Pro’s camera. Fursat is a Bollywood-style musical full of songs and dances with an intense love tale at its heart, heightened by aspects of science-fiction and time travel, despite being a tribute to the iPhone 14 Pro. What is there not to like? Vishal Bhardwaj’s short and sweet tour de force, Fursat’s 30-minute playtime feels a little too short. Are you curious about the future of filmmaking? Fursat is a free movie to watch on YouTube.