Vidhu Vinod Chopra spent the past four-and-a-half years making 12th Fail. What kept him going? His resolve to tell a story that is close to his heart. “I didn’t make Munna Bhai 3, and instead decided to make this film, which is yet to be picked up by a streamer. It’s my movie, my money. I believe you don’t have to sell your soul to make a film,” begins Chopra, who has written, directed and produced the Vikrant Massey-starrer.

Right at the conception stage, Chopra’s drive was to tell the story of those in the crowd who don’t have opportunities handed to them on a platter, those who fight the odds and make it on merit. “A line in the film goes, ‘Agar ek bhi bhed bakri ki jeet hoti hai, laakhon ki jeet hoti hai.’ It’s the story of every common man. It’s my own story in some ways. I came to Mumbai at 15 with no money. I developed anxiety neurosis when I first came here. My father told me that I would die hungry in the big city, but he instilled in me values that didn’t let me go astray.”