Mapping seven decades of Mumbai's film industry

Se siete in vacanza a Mumbai (beati voi) e volete dedicarvi a del sano cineturismo, nell'articolo Mapping seven decades of Mumbai's film industry, di Sankhayan Ghosh, pubblicato da Film Companion il 16 agosto 2022, troverete alcuni itinerari davvero interessanti con corredo di mappe. Di seguito un estratto:

'If you were to go back in time to the 1940s, this is how the film industry in Bombay would look: Stretching from Grant Road all the way up to Malad, with such off-centre suburbs as Sewri and Chembur serving as important hubs. It's difficult to imagine today. There were studios in Tardeo and Dadar because the studio barons, film stars, directors and composers lived in places like Napean Sea Road and Peddar Road. At the same time, other parts of the city offered nature and open spaces that allowed outdoor shooting. True to the spirit of a city that prides itself for its adaptability, Bollywood shaped and reshaped itself as unstoppable urbanisation devoured Mumbai and real estate prices went up. The centrality of Andheri to the city's film industry over the last four decades has contributed to the idea of the industry belonging to its own bubble, but in its own way, it's mirrored the ever-expanding definition of an ever-growing city, bursting as its seams and surging forward. (...)

In the beginning...

The Grant Road-Tardeo area formed the southernmost cluster of film studios in the city in 1940, known as the original studio road. Jyoti Studios in Nana Chowk is the stuff of legend: Alam Ara (1931), India's first talkie, was shot here; as was (...) the first Iranian sound film. (...)

Eastside Story (...)

In Parel, [in] the Wadia brothers' (...) premises, (...) Wadia Movietone had produced the Fearless Nadia films in the Thirties, (...) but as the fantasy genre ran out of steam, their business fell into debt. When one of the brothers, Homi (who was married to Nadia) went on to begin his own studio, he found the ideal place in the eastern suburb of Chembur. (...) It was 1974. A year later, Raj Kapoor would launch R.K. Studios, an icon for decades before it was gutted by a fire in 2017. Last checked, it has been converted into a premium residential high-rise.

The Queen of Suburbs

When Mehboob Khan was looking for an area for his studio - not as far as Malad, closer to south Mumbai - he found it in a pre-reclamation Bandra. The rest is history. Films like Mother India (1957), Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) (...) were shot here. Films are still shot at Mehboob, which has kept itself relevant by opening up to events such as an Anish Kapoor exhibition and the Mahindra Blues Festival.

Northward Bound

You would think that the film industry gradually moved northward. But Andheri and beyond, with its bountiful nature and open vistas on offer, was always a part of the its scheme of things. An active cluster was formed in Andheri (East), led by Mohan Studios, where the sets of Mughal-E-Azam (1960) were built and Bimal Roy preferred shooting. (...)

Film industry's final frontier

Further north in Malad was the storied Bombay Talkies. Stars (Dilip Kumar, Madhubala) were launched, state of the art technology was introduced (bringing with it employment for European technicians), scandals broke out (Devika Rani, who was married to the studio founder Himanshu Rai, eloped with the actor Najam-ul-Hassan). When Ashok Kumar, one of the major stars on the studio's bankroll in the early Forties, started his own studio, Filmistan, he chose the Ghod Bunder area in Borivali.

A new Film City

By the end of the Seventies, the studio era was pretty much over. And the game changer was Film City, established by the Government of Maharashtra in 1977 as a one-stop shop for film shoots and constructed in Aarey forest in Goregaon on 520 acres of land. (...)

Andheri Central

With the development of Film City, the film industry was now concentrated in and around Andheri. New clusters were formed. Studios were no more studios but production houses - perhaps with the exception of Yash Raj Films, which has its own floors and facilities. Formed in 2005 in Veera Desai Road, it has for company Balaji Telefilms, Dharma Productions and Eros International. A number of production houses, like Shah Rukh Khan's Red Chillies Production and Farhan Akhtar-Ritesh Sidhwani's Excel Entertainment, are in Khar.

Hustler District

The Aaramnagar compound in Versova has come to signify a new filmmaking culture that has coincided with digital filmmaking taking over celluloid in the 2010s. It's a world unto itself, where bungalows have been converted into film offices and casting agencies, and coffee shops double as working spaces. Director and producer Anurag Kashyap - who could be the patron saint of Aaramnagar - has an office here. (...) The film industry's shift to the north of the city was now complete'.

Deepa Mehta’s ‘Earth’ is a reminder of lines arbitrarily drawn between countries and hearts

Vi segnalo l'articolo Deepa Mehta’s ‘Earth’ is a reminder of lines arbitrarily drawn between countries and hearts, di Nandini Ramnath, pubblicato oggi da Scroll:

'Earth was inspired by [Deepa] Mehta’s own family history. “It was going to be loosely based on my parents’ experience as they ‘celebrated’ the Independence of India, which for them was always intertwined with the tragedy of its Partition. (...) They lived in Amritsar and Lahore was their second home.” Mehta had been moved by M.S. Sathyu’s Garm Hava (1973), about the dilemma that confronts a Muslim family that chooses India over Pakistan, and Vittorio De Sica’s The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970), about a Jewish family in Fascist-era Italy in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Sometime in 1997, Mehta saw a copy of [Bapsi] Sidhwa’s Ice Candy Man (which is also titled Cracking India) in a bookstore. A quote by Sidhwa on the cover caught Mehta’s eye: “All wars are fought on women’s bodies.” “What could be more cinematic than those words?” Mehta said. (...)

One of the film’s most layered performances is by Aamir Khan. His Dil Navaz embodies the erasure of the boundary between religious feelings and political beliefs that marks accounts of Partition survivors. In a standout scene, Dil Navaz watches helplessly from a terrace as Lahore burns, his rage pickling into a hatred that frightens Shanta [protagonista femminile]. “David Hamilton and Jhamu Sughand were the two producers on the film,” Mehta said. “Jhamu gave Aamir the script. Aamir read it, liked it, we met, talked and that was it. I think he liked the challenge of Dil Navaz’s character arc - the ability of hatred to askew love and decency. It’s one of his most complex performances.” (...)

Partition-era Lahore was recreated in Delhi. “We went to Lahore for a recce but the logistics of shooting there were enormous,” Mehta said. (...) Earth was distributed by Jhamu Sughand. It had a limited run, and circulated more widely on pirated videos, Mehta recalled. To date, the film isn’t available on any streaming platform in India'.

Alia Bhatt e Ranbir Kapoor in Italia

In questi giorni Alia Bhatt e Ranbir Kapoor sono in Italia. Giunta ieri nel nostro Paese, la celebre coppia dovrebbe ripartire per Mumbai intorno al 13 agosto 2022. Il viaggio è una sorta di breve luna di miele, dal momento che si tratta della prima vacanza per Alia e Ranbir dalla celebrazione delle nozze. Vi ricordo che l'attrice aspetta un bambino. A giudicare dal commento di Sonam Kapoor alla fotografia condivisa da Alia, la località dovrebbe essere la struttura Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco, in provincia di Siena (Sonam vi aveva soggiornato lo scorso giugno, clicca qui).

Aggiornamento del 14 agosto 2022: video.

Amitav Ghosh a Il fattore umano

Amitav Ghosh ha partecipato alla puntata Gli spaesati del programma Il fattore umano in onda ieri su Rai 3. Video promozionale.