Mumbai: Bollywood enthusiasts can look forward to a guided bus tour of Film City in suburban Goregaon, adjacent to Sanjay Gandhi National Park, and also get a chance to watch film shootings and perhaps meet the stars.
Starting this November, the pilot venture, by the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) and Maharashtra Film, Stage & Cultural Development Corporation (MFSCDC), is geared to offering tourists and film buffs a close glimpse of studios, shooting locations, editing studios, watching a shoot and perhaps even have an interaction with the stars. The visitors will also get an opportunity to see various permanent locations like helipad, artificial lake, temple and court as well as see the audio and video editing studios and technical labs at the complex.
Initially, the hour-long tour will be conducted twice a day on weekends, though the finer details of the tour are being worked out. There will be advance booking for the guided tour that will take tourists through the lush green 350-acre complex which has several recording rooms, gardens, lakes, theatres, make-up rooms and grounds that serve as the venue of film shootings.
The tour will take tourists to the locations of the latest film, Barfi and television reality show Kaun Banega Crorepati and even to the site where the epic Sholay was shot.
The schedule of the tour will be put up on the MTDC website so that booking can be done in advance. Moreover, Chief Secretary Jayant Kumar Banthia said at a meeting, “We have suggested that the timing of shoots, list of various exhibits and studios be put up on the website to make it easier for the tourists.” The first tour is likely to begin at the first weekend of November. The pickup point will be from the MTDC office at Prabhadevi in Dadar from where a bus will take the tourists to Film City.
With a huge interest in Hindi films, MTDC feels that Bollywood tours would be one way of celebrating the centenary year of Indian cinema. Film City was renamed Dadsaheb Phalke Nagar in memory of the legendary Marathi producer-director-screenwriter Dadasaheb Phalke who is known as the father of Indian cinema.
