MUMBAI: Anurag Kashyap, the filmmaker who is known to create and recreate cinema every time through his innovate concepts and ideas, is slated to come up with a new venture ‘Bombay Velvet‘. The movie has been made on historical lines of Mumbai, where he has recreated Mumbai of 1960s and filmed the story of how the city became a metropolis. The movie starring Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka Sharma has been shot on the various locations in Sri Lanka.
According to him, "It is set in the 60s and I needed a consistent heritage look and a skyline to loyally depict the era. But, Bombay‘s skyline has transformed dramatically, most of the heritage buildings have been replaced by high-rises. So it did not fit the period we are looking to recreate. That‘s why we are shooting in Sri Lanka, starting next month," Kashyap told PTI.
He further informed, "Unfortunately, India does not have a culture of preservation, whether it is films, monuments or buildings. Cities like Bombay have not been able to preserve their architectural heritage in the race for urban growth, and hence period films will face serious challenges in India, both in terms of shooting and authentically recreating the era."
The writer-director whose movies, in the last few years, proven catalysis and brought into revolutionary changes in the Hindi cinema, including Dev D and Gang of Wasseypur, shared his challenges that he came across while researching for the film during the pre production process.
The real challenge is unavailability of evidences or blueprints as most of the heritage buildings in Indian cities have either "disappeared or have been modified beyond recognition".
As he elaborated on various challenges which he faced while researching on the topic, "Not only the buildings were missing, we did not know how an area, or the city in general looked during that period. So, we took help of not only available archival images but also approached families in Mumbai to share their old albums to help us in reimagining Bombay 50 years ago, a Bombay now largely missing in a vertically-growing Mumbai," he said.
Some parts of the film are also likely to be shot in studios in Mumbai.
The film is based on historian Gyan Prakash‘s book ‘Mumbai Fables‘. "I met Gyan before the book was published. And, when he told me about the story, I was fascinated. I never thought Bombay (Mumbai) had such a history. And, so Gyan wrote the book while simultaneously penning the script for the parallel adaptation," Kashyap told PTI.
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