No shooting please!

Karan Johar’s film denied permission to shoot in London.


Shooting a film on terrorism on foreign soil may not be easy anymore. Writerdirector Renzil D’Silva was recently denied permission to shoot in any underground tube station of London for his film on terrorism. The film, produced by Karan Johar, had to be shifted out of London. Since a major chunk of the terrorists’ scenes featuring Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Vivek Oberoi and Om Puri were situated in a tube station, the unit had no option but to shift base to Philadelphia in the US where permission was not only obtained to shoot in a tube station, but an entire train was hired for shooting during off hours.

Filmmaker Jagmohan Mundhra however, some time ago, was luckier and managed to shoot his film Shoot On Sight based on the London tube-station bombing on actual location. Says Mundhra, “Getting permission was tough. The British authorities were very apprehensive because they had read my script. The UK Film Council had to intervene after we protested about artistic muzzling.”