Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma's Satya re-released in theatres recently and its special screening was organised in Mumbai, which was attended by the cast and makers. On Monday (January 20), RGV opened up about watching Satya for the first time in 27 years and being overwhelmed with tears—tears of nostalgia, regret, and self-realisation.

He admitted that revisiting Satya was a deeply personal and transformative experience. He wrote on his official X account, "By the time Satya was rolling to an end, while watching it 2 days back for the first time after 27 years, I started choking with tears rolling down my cheeks, and I didn’t care if anyone would see. The tears were not just for the film, but were more for what happened since."

The director revealed that he got emotional not just for the film’s narrative but for what had unfolded in his life and career since its release.

Further in his post, he also vowed to honour the sincerity and passion that once drove him to create films like Satya. "Every film I make from now onwards will be made with a reverence towards why I wanted to become a director in the first place," he promised.

Drawing inspiration from filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola’s hesitation after The Godfather, RGV regretted not setting Satya as a benchmark for his subsequent works. "I so wish I could go back in time and make this one cardinal rule for myself: before deciding on any film to make, I should watch Satya once again. If I followed that rule, I am sure I would not have made 90% of the films I made since then."

"I so wish I could go back in time and made this one cardinal rule for myself, that before deciding on any film to make, I should watch SATYA once again… If I followed that rule I am sure I would not have made 90% of the films I made since then... I truly mean this as a wake up call to every filmmaker, who just gets carried away in self indulgence due to his own state of mind at any given moment without measuring it against the standards set by either themselves or others," he wrote.

"Finally now I took a vow that whatever little of my life is left, I want to spend it sincerely and create something as worthy as SATYA and this truth I swear on SATYA," he concluded.

Satya (1998) is a landmark in Indian cinema that revolutionised the portrayal of the underworld. Set in the gritty streets of Mumbai, the film follows the story of Satya (JD Chakravarthy), an innocent man who comes to the city seeking work but is unwittingly drawn into the murky world of organised crime. It also stars Manoj Bajpayee, Urmila Matondkar, Shefali Shah, Saurabh Shukla and others.