India, Aug. 13 -- The auditorium at Hindu College was full before she arrived. Students had been waiting since morning, some with phones already raised, ready. When Preity Zinta walked in, the room did what rooms full of young people do when someone from another world enters theirs. It got loud. But what happened after the noise settled was something quieter and more unexpected. She got emotional. And so, a little did they. Zinta was at the University of Delhi on Wednesday to speak about Batwara 1947, the partition film directed by Raj Kumar Santoshi that releases on August 14, one day before Independence Day.

She spoke about the film, about the story it tells, and about partition being a chapter of history that Indian cinema has largely...