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Niagara calls

Firdaus Ali

Goodbye Switzerland, hello Canada! Well, if the increasing number of Hindi movies being filmed in Toronto is anything to go by, Bollywood has slowly found out Hollywood's little, old secret.

That Canada, a long-forgotten haven for filmmakers is finally receiving its due. With the kind of visual appeal and technical expertise it offers, dream merchants are making a beeline to shoot in picturesque locales all across the country.

"Canada has a lot to offer to filmmakers in terms of artistic and technical wizardry. Strangely, for some reason it has remained unexplored by Asian film-makers,'' muses Ajay Virmani, an Indo-Canadian business shipping tycoon and co-producer of hit films Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi, International Khiladi and Mr & Mrs Khiladi, all three of which were shot in Toronto.

But the trend seems to be changing with films like "Mohabbat" "Pardes" and the recent "Taal" being shot against Canadian backdrops in Vancouver and Toronto.

Props like the Niagara Falls, CN Tower, Skydome Theatre, various countryside landscapes and urban hi-rise buildings -- have made Canada the new Mecca for Indian film-makers, tired of their usual jaunts to Switzerland and Mauritius.

In Toronto, it's an everyday thing to watch huge caravans of tractor, trailers, catering trucks and honey wagons -- railcar-sized dressing rooms and toilets parked on the corner of streets. The camera, crews, bright lights, costumed actors, extras milling about, the off-duty cops, traffic jams, all confirm the fact that Toronto is the world's third-largest movie production center in North America, after Los Angeles and New York.

Recent figures showed that more than 52 productions were shot in Canada in the last few months alone. With film shoots priced almost 45-50 percent cheaper and film studios, recording/dubbing studios, technicians and local artistes ready for a piece of action, Toronto earns high revenues by way of film shoots.

The annual Toronto Film Festival, several film shows and touring theatre productions have all added to the glamour of Toronto.

If more Hollywood films are being shot here in the last few years, the recent Mission to Mars being one of them -- in Bollywood, it was the late Raj Kapoor who was the only director to exploit the beauty of Niagara Falls in his film Around the World in Eight Dollars.

Other film moguls have strangely stayed away -- until now, that is. "Canada was always considered globally isolated and to most Indians Toronto is a lot farther away than Los Angeles or New York," reasons Virmani.

If directors like Subhash Ghai created a new trend by filming Pardes and Taal in Canadian cities -- the Canadian government responded by providing permits, visas, accessible studio and technical links. The Indian film industry, being a dream factory, churning out escapist films needs is always on the lookout for new places. Indian audiences want to see the globe without ever having to leave their seats.

Most filmmakers making a stop to Canada are pleasantly surprised to find that the country's beauty doesn't begin and end with the Niagara; in fact the magnificent Falls are just a trailer to the main scene.

Magnificent snow-capped mountains, streams and rivers, meadows and grasslands form ideal shooting spots.

If shooting in Canada means more money, it also means articulate organization and planning by the producers. "Good planning goes a long way in procuring the much needed permission and licenses to shoot the film in advance," says Virmani.

He recalls filming for Mr & Mrs Khiladi a few years ago in Toronto and director David Dhawan being able to shoot five-and-a-half songs with 30 scenes in 25 days.

"It proves what good planning and management can do to save costs," says Virmani.

Shooting abroad also appeals to Indians living abroad.

"Most Indians living in the west are fascinated by seeing their film idols in person. Film shoots attract a lot of attention and provides free publicity for the film," says Neelam Sethi a Toronto-based film director, who shot Private Investigators, a teleserial for Zee.

Mira Nair too shot parts of My Own Country in Toronto. Because, "Toronto has a different look and feel about it. There are expert technicians available who know their city and ambience. What more could a filmmaker ask for?"

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