What forced Anurag Kashyap to shoot his forthcoming film Bombay Velvet miles away in Sri Lanka or Rohan Sippy to film his Nautanki Saala only during the nights in the city that never sleeps?
In several Bollywood films over the years, Bombay or Mumbai has been depicted with its entire cornucopia. While there was the hero and the heroine, the city stood almost like a parallel character, a necessary backdrop without which the film perhaps would somewhere seem incomplete. But with changing times and government policies, more and more filmmakers are looking to skip the city and shoot elsewhere, recreating the quintessential Mumbai across distant lands.

Sanjay Gupta
The director, who has shot almost all his films in the city uses the word ‘extortion’ for the kind of treatment they receive at hand of the authorities. “In today’s times, very few wish to shoot in the city. The moment the shooting starts, nearby cops, custom guys - if we’re shooting by the seaside - municipal guys, and God knows who else will try to pinch money off you by finding faults with your permission. These governmental bodies are not different from parasites.”