Dubai and Abu Dhabi, friendly rivals for investment and tourism in the United Arab Emirates, have one more reason to compete: shooting locations for Bollywood.
Dubai is several laps ahead in this race, with songs, sequences and whole movies having been shot there for several years. But Abu Dhabi is working hard to persuade Hindi filmmakers that the UAE capital can certainly handle a movie production or two.
Both the UAE member cities feature in two recent A-list Hindi productions. Abu Dhabi is one of the foreign locations in Bang Bang!, while the heist that forms the basis of the plot in Happy New Year unfolds in the luxury hotel The Atlantis, The Palm, in Dubai. The January 23 release Baby has been shot in Abu Dhabi, while the production crews of the upcoming Welcome Back and Hamari Adhuri Kahaani have Dubai schedules.
Shooting in Dubai has several advantages, said a senior executive at Red Chillies Entertainment, which produced Happy New Year, on condition of anonymity. The local film council is very flexible about permissions and other logistics, Dubai has glamorous locations, and there is a sizeable Indian expatriate community, making the UAE one of the most important markets for Bollywood after the United States and the United Kingdom.
“Earlier, we used to say that if a film is shot in Delhi, it will do well in Delhi,” the executive said. “That thinking has gone international. Besides, Dubai is one of the biggest markets for Hindi films, and will only grow.”
Shooting a film in Dubai or Abu Dhabi could stand in for the entire Gulf, which, for the Hindi movie trade, includes Bahrain, Kuwait and Lebanon. “If you shoot in Dubai, you are showcasing the whole region,” said the Red Chillies executive. “When you shoot in Dubai, you get the scale you need.”
Luxurious backdrop
Bollywood has travelled far and wide in its search for locations that exhibit the cleanliness, order and exotic appeal that are absent from Mumbai or any other Indian city. Apart from run-of-the destinations such as the UK, the USA and Canada, the checklist includes South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the Czech Republic, Latvia, South Africa, Poland, Holland, China and Peru.
It is all very well to shake a leg before an Instagram-friendly waterfall here or a field of tulips there, but foreign locations work best when they are woven into the plot, said Vikram Malhotra, founder and chief executive officer of Abundantia Entertainment and one of the producers of Baby. Directed by Neeraj Pandey, the thriller stars Akshay Kumar and Tapasee Pannu. “Unless there is a sweetheart deal available in a country, the story has to merit” a foreign location shoot, Malhotra said. “In the case of Baby, we needed to shoot in a Middle Eastern background and a certain kind of topography.” The Abu Dhabi Film Commission moved swiftly to make the shoot possible, he added. Baby has been shot in Abu Dhabi city as well as at the Qasr Al Sarab luxury resort on its outskirts.
“We have fantastic locations, we double up as Pakistan and Afghanistan, and we also have fantastic architecture to create the city of the not too distant future,” said Michael Flannigan, head of the Abu Dhabi Film Commission, which handles shoots by foreign crews for movies, television series and commercials. Flannigan was recently in Mumbai to spread the good word on Abu Dhabi’s attractiveness as a shooting location. Bang Bang! used a mixture of neighbourhoods and hotels, including the Corniche Road, the Liwa Oasis, Hyatt Capital Gate Hotel, Qasr al Sarab, the Emirates Palace and Yas Island. A key chase sequence in Bang Bang! was filmed on the Corniche Road.
Rebates to filmmakers
Foreign films shoots benefit the Emirati cities by providing a training ground for local filmmakers in the absence of a home-grown film industry. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are separately pursuing master plans to boost sectors that will wean them off their dependence on oil revenues.
“One of the key focuses of Dubai’s Strategic Plan 2015 is to develop its film and TV sectors to be able to position the Emirate as a global media, entertainment and cultural hub,” said Jamal Al Sharif, chairperson of the Dubai Film and TV Commission. “ In line with this, there have been a number of developments in recent years to drive the industry. This has included the construction of three sound stages at Dubai Studio City, which launched last year and are the largest in the region, and the launch of the Film Dubai Production Guide earlier this year, which provides a structured guide with contact details of the key people across the industry.”
Its neighbour, meanwhile, is ramping up its media infrastructure as part of the Abu Dhabi Vision 2030. “The plan is for media to contribute 3% to the GDP [gross domestic product] by 2030,” Flannigan said.
Al Sharif also sees a direct connection between film shoots and tourist footfalls. “The increase in production and filming in Dubai has indirectly influenced the growth of tourism in the Emirate,” he said. “Films have contributed to the positive image of Dubai, and the storyline, themes and characters of a film can elicit associations and emotions towards a place, thereby enhancing its potential as a travel destination.”
Differently typecast
Among the high-profile Hollywood movies to be shot there was Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, which made judicious use of Dubai’s vertiginous buildings. One of the most talked-about sequences in the 2011 movie saw lead actor Tom Cruise scale the façade of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest structure on the planet. The favoured corners of Dubai for Indian filmmakers, Al Sharif added, include beaches, parks, Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai Marina, the Bur Dubai district, and hotels such as The Atlantis, The Palm and Sofitel on The Palm, which features in Welcome Back.
By shooting at Dubai’s luxury spots, Hindi filmmakers might also be in the process of reinventing their relationship with the UAE economic engine. Dubai has been portrayed as the getaway destination for gold smugglers and gangsters directly or indirectly in such films as Ab Tak Chhappan, Black Friday and Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai, in no small measure due to allegations that fugitive criminal overlord Dawood Ibrahim had set up a base there after fleeing India in 1986 and before allegedly relocating to somewhere in Pakistan.
Filmmaker Aditya Bhattacharya immortalised the Mumbai-Dubai traffic in the unreleased Dubai Return, in which Irrfan Khan’s small-time hoodlum escapes to the city after being involved in an underworld killing. Khan’s character works in Dubai as a petrol pump attendant, rather than lolling by the pool or lounging at the races as other Hindi movie actors have been shown to do. His Dubai is closer to the one inhabited by the thousands of Indians who work there. The Dubai that we are now seeing in the movies, on the other hand, is closer to the vision of how we want our Indian cities to be.
Dubai is several laps ahead in this race, with songs, sequences and whole movies having been shot there for several years. But Abu Dhabi is working hard to persuade Hindi filmmakers that the UAE capital can certainly handle a movie production or two.
Both the UAE member cities feature in two recent A-list Hindi productions. Abu Dhabi is one of the foreign locations in Bang Bang!, while the heist that forms the basis of the plot in Happy New Year unfolds in the luxury hotel The Atlantis, The Palm, in Dubai. The January 23 release Baby has been shot in Abu Dhabi, while the production crews of the upcoming Welcome Back and Hamari Adhuri Kahaani have Dubai schedules.
Shooting in Dubai has several advantages, said a senior executive at Red Chillies Entertainment, which produced Happy New Year, on condition of anonymity. The local film council is very flexible about permissions and other logistics, Dubai has glamorous locations, and there is a sizeable Indian expatriate community, making the UAE one of the most important markets for Bollywood after the United States and the United Kingdom.
“Earlier, we used to say that if a film is shot in Delhi, it will do well in Delhi,” the executive said. “That thinking has gone international. Besides, Dubai is one of the biggest markets for Hindi films, and will only grow.”
Shooting a film in Dubai or Abu Dhabi could stand in for the entire Gulf, which, for the Hindi movie trade, includes Bahrain, Kuwait and Lebanon. “If you shoot in Dubai, you are showcasing the whole region,” said the Red Chillies executive. “When you shoot in Dubai, you get the scale you need.”
Luxurious backdrop
Bollywood has travelled far and wide in its search for locations that exhibit the cleanliness, order and exotic appeal that are absent from Mumbai or any other Indian city. Apart from run-of-the destinations such as the UK, the USA and Canada, the checklist includes South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the Czech Republic, Latvia, South Africa, Poland, Holland, China and Peru.
It is all very well to shake a leg before an Instagram-friendly waterfall here or a field of tulips there, but foreign locations work best when they are woven into the plot, said Vikram Malhotra, founder and chief executive officer of Abundantia Entertainment and one of the producers of Baby. Directed by Neeraj Pandey, the thriller stars Akshay Kumar and Tapasee Pannu. “Unless there is a sweetheart deal available in a country, the story has to merit” a foreign location shoot, Malhotra said. “In the case of Baby, we needed to shoot in a Middle Eastern background and a certain kind of topography.” The Abu Dhabi Film Commission moved swiftly to make the shoot possible, he added. Baby has been shot in Abu Dhabi city as well as at the Qasr Al Sarab luxury resort on its outskirts.
“We have fantastic locations, we double up as Pakistan and Afghanistan, and we also have fantastic architecture to create the city of the not too distant future,” said Michael Flannigan, head of the Abu Dhabi Film Commission, which handles shoots by foreign crews for movies, television series and commercials. Flannigan was recently in Mumbai to spread the good word on Abu Dhabi’s attractiveness as a shooting location. Bang Bang! used a mixture of neighbourhoods and hotels, including the Corniche Road, the Liwa Oasis, Hyatt Capital Gate Hotel, Qasr al Sarab, the Emirates Palace and Yas Island. A key chase sequence in Bang Bang! was filmed on the Corniche Road.
Rebates to filmmakers
Abu Dhabi offers rebates on shooting expenses to woo filmmakers away from other destinations. "We have a 30% cash-back production incentive in the form of a rebate, which has been attractive not just to Hollywood and Bollywood producers, but also to regional filmmakers,” Flannigan said. Among the Hollywood films to be recently shot in Abu Dhabi are the 2015 releases Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Furious 7. Out-station producers need to spend a minimum of $50,000 for a commercial and $200,000 for a movie.
Foreign films shoots benefit the Emirati cities by providing a training ground for local filmmakers in the absence of a home-grown film industry. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are separately pursuing master plans to boost sectors that will wean them off their dependence on oil revenues.
“One of the key focuses of Dubai’s Strategic Plan 2015 is to develop its film and TV sectors to be able to position the Emirate as a global media, entertainment and cultural hub,” said Jamal Al Sharif, chairperson of the Dubai Film and TV Commission. “ In line with this, there have been a number of developments in recent years to drive the industry. This has included the construction of three sound stages at Dubai Studio City, which launched last year and are the largest in the region, and the launch of the Film Dubai Production Guide earlier this year, which provides a structured guide with contact details of the key people across the industry.”
Its neighbour, meanwhile, is ramping up its media infrastructure as part of the Abu Dhabi Vision 2030. “The plan is for media to contribute 3% to the GDP [gross domestic product] by 2030,” Flannigan said.
Al Sharif also sees a direct connection between film shoots and tourist footfalls. “The increase in production and filming in Dubai has indirectly influenced the growth of tourism in the Emirate,” he said. “Films have contributed to the positive image of Dubai, and the storyline, themes and characters of a film can elicit associations and emotions towards a place, thereby enhancing its potential as a travel destination.”
Differently typecast
Among the high-profile Hollywood movies to be shot there was Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, which made judicious use of Dubai’s vertiginous buildings. One of the most talked-about sequences in the 2011 movie saw lead actor Tom Cruise scale the façade of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest structure on the planet. The favoured corners of Dubai for Indian filmmakers, Al Sharif added, include beaches, parks, Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai Marina, the Bur Dubai district, and hotels such as The Atlantis, The Palm and Sofitel on The Palm, which features in Welcome Back.
By shooting at Dubai’s luxury spots, Hindi filmmakers might also be in the process of reinventing their relationship with the UAE economic engine. Dubai has been portrayed as the getaway destination for gold smugglers and gangsters directly or indirectly in such films as Ab Tak Chhappan, Black Friday and Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai, in no small measure due to allegations that fugitive criminal overlord Dawood Ibrahim had set up a base there after fleeing India in 1986 and before allegedly relocating to somewhere in Pakistan.
Filmmaker Aditya Bhattacharya immortalised the Mumbai-Dubai traffic in the unreleased Dubai Return, in which Irrfan Khan’s small-time hoodlum escapes to the city after being involved in an underworld killing. Khan’s character works in Dubai as a petrol pump attendant, rather than lolling by the pool or lounging at the races as other Hindi movie actors have been shown to do. His Dubai is closer to the one inhabited by the thousands of Indians who work there. The Dubai that we are now seeing in the movies, on the other hand, is closer to the vision of how we want our Indian cities to be.
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