Lucknow is fast evolving as a major shooting destination for Bollywood movies. Owing to the city’s rich cultural heritage and historic significance coupled with scenic beauty, it poses as the perfect movie backdrop for any scene.
Using Lucknow as a backdrop in more and more Bollywood films, the directors are trying to bring to the fore the city’s regal and royal traditions kept intact from the time of the Nawabs. The city makes for a good backdrop for period movies.
In the past, the film-makers shot their films against scenic backdrops of hill stations in the north such as Shimla, Manali, and Ooty in the south, deserts in Rajasthan and beaches as in Goa and Kerala.
For the state of Uttar Pradesh, a positive drift has been witnessed in the recent past as far as revenue from entertainment industry is concerned. Now, more and more directors are filming Bollywood sequences in places endowed with rich culture and traditional legacy that include the cities of Agra, Varanasi and Lucknow, to name a few.
A glimpse of Bollywood blockbuster movies shot in Lucknow:
In last couple of years, big-budget as well as small budget movies have been filmed in the city under the direction of famous directors such as Sanjay Gupta, Habib Faisal, and Anand L Rai, among others.
Tanu Weds Manu, released in 2011 is a romantic comedy movie starring actor R Madhavan and actress Kangana Ranaut in the lead roles. In the movie, the director used the impressive Safed Baradari in Kaiserbagh locality to show the wedding of Tanu and Manu. The other Lucknow locations covered in the movie included pukka pul and historic monuments of the Nawabi era in the old area of the city (Chowk and Nakkhas).
Seeing the success of the original movies, the director has again used Lucknow as the movie backdrop in its sequel titled, Tanu Weds Manu Returns.
Habib Faisal’s Daawat-e-ishq is another movie for which some sequences had been shot in Lucknow. One of the scenes featuring Aditya Roy Kapoor and Parineeti Chopra was filmed in the Ambedkar Park in Gomti Nagar, The British Residency, Daliganj, Bada Imambara and Roomi Darwaza.
The song “Sangemarmar ki Deewarein” in the movie titled ‘Youngistaan’ has been shot at the Ambedkar Samajik Parivartan Sthal in Gomti Nagar.
Besides the above mentioned movies, sequences of some other movies – Bullet Raja, Ladies v/s Ricky Bahl, Ishaqzaade, and Shootout at Wadala have also used Lucknow as their movie backdrop.
Plans to set-up two film cities in Lucknow:
To give a boost to the showbiz sector, the Uttar Pradesh state government has proposed setting up of two film cities – one, on the Lucknow-Agra expressway and second in Unnao, at the hi-tech city project. This move is expected to give a lift to the state’s tourism potential.
The recent developments pointing towards getting film cities around Lucknow give a clear indication of the immense potential the city has for the entertainment industry. The setting up of the film cities is one big step in promoting the city’s rich culture, tradition and heritage while boosting employment opportunities in the state, too. It goes on to make a statement about the city and state being open and favourable for business or commercial investments.
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