LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION

The craggy ravines have never disappointed Bollywood. The Sunil Dutt starrer Mujhe Jeene Do (1963), Putli Bai (1972), Dacait (1987), with Sunny Deol in the lead, Bandit Queen (1994) and Paan Singh Tomar (2012)-the dacoit genre had Madhya Pradesh as one of its most sought after filming destinations for six decades.

- Rahul Noronha

Understandably so, for the legendary badlands of the Chambal, where numerous dacoit gangs were based, are located here. But in the past five years, the Hindi film industry has realised that there is much more to the state as a film shooting destination than a perfect setting for cops chasing dacoits on galloping horses. MP has now emerged as one of the most sought-after filming destinations for movies and OTT shows-as many as 400 movies and OTTs have been produced partly or wholly in the state in recent years.

Though all-time classics like Shri 420 and Naya Daur were partly shot in MP way back in the 1950s, and even the offbeat Teesri Kasam was among the films that kept up the momentum in the '60s, the steady trickle of location scouts rarely looked beyond Indore, Bhopal and Gwalior till the 2010s. It was director Prakash Jha who in a sense rediscovered MP by exploiting its diverse locations, beginning with Rajneeti (2008). After this, he shot Arakshan (2011), Chakravyuh (2012) and Gangajal 2 (2016) in MP. However, it was the state government's Film Tourism Policy (FTP) in March 2020 that has turned out to be the game-changer. Its most important objective is to facilitate film shootings in MP through a single window system of permissions. This erased the notorious roadblocks that inevitably arise when negotiating a maze of bureaucracy.