How picturesque Serbia is winning hearts of Bollywood filmmakers

Production companies from India are increasingly choosing Serbia when it comes to locations for shooting. 2018 marks the busiest year for Serbian production service companies in relation to Indian market. The reasons are numerous. The introduction to non visa regime and increase in cash rebate to 25% by the Ministry of Economy have made Serbia the new go to destination for Indian filmmakers.

The July premiere of 'Soorma', biographical hero drama of the hockey player Sandeep Singh, played by Diljit Dosanjh, directed by Shaad Ali and produced by Sony Pictures Networks India brought to big screen some of Serbia's most iconic locations in downtown Belgrade and Novi Sad to portray Singh's recovery period spent in Europe. And this is just an intro to the upcoming season of films that were all shot on location in Serbia.

After successful collaboration with Clockwork Film Production on 'Into the Wild', Mani Ratnam, one of the most internationally awarded Indian directors, returned to Serbia for his Tamil-language action thriller 'Chekka Chivantha Vaanam'. It is produced by Mani Ratnam and Subaskaran under their banners Madras Talkies and Lyca Productions. The film features an ensemble cast including Arvind Swami, Silambarasan, Vijay Sethupathi and Arun Vijay as the lead actors, with a supporting female cast led by Jyothika, Aishwarya Rajesh, Aditi Rao Hydari and Dayana Erappa. Music composed A. R. Rahman, as for other Ratman’s films made the winning team and high grossing cinema attendance. Shooting commenced in February at the outskirts of Chennai, completed in June in Serbia and it was qualified for the incentive program of the Ministry of Economy of Serbia.

From June to August almost simultaneously to 'Chekka ChivanthaVaanam' was shot 'Uri' which cumulated 100 shooting days serviced by Clockwork Film Production in the past 12 months in partnership with India.

Town of Požarevac and Old Mountain were perfect locations for shooting Bollywood drama 'Uri', directed and written by debutant Aditya Dhar and produced by Ronnie Screwvala's production arm RSVP. The recreation of surgical strike carried out by Indian army positioned across the Line of Control was successfully done thanks to great cooperation Serbian film crews enjoy with the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Serbia and Serbian army forces. Sets made for 'Uri' demanded the construction and intervention of local production designers to faithfully show the territory of India and Myanmar. Special forces were portrayed with teams of stuntmen from Asia, Europe and Thailand combined with 600 extras. Film is in post-production with release scheduled for February 2019.

And it is not only film locations and European looks that have attracted Indian production companies to partner with Serbian counterparts. The other area of collaboration is high end visual effects for Bollywood and box office blockbuster titles. Serbian VFX studios have been collaborating with India advertising market in delivering VFX worked, but after the success of 'Bahubali 2: The Conclusion' the doors opened for new projects that required high standards and creative dedication to the final look.

The upcoming epic adventure 'Thugs of Hindostan' with Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif and Amitabh Bachchan directed by Vijay Krishna Acharya and produced by Yash Raj Films is the latest release where Serbian team behind Crater Studio paired to deliver the action packed scenes and breathtaking sea combats in the style of 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. Crater Studio portfolio of films for US market have made them specialists for water simulations, so their expertise came to support the segments of Thugs in creating CG sea rocks, water simulations and destruction of ships in the ambush scene.

The other one is long awaited sequel to 'Enthiran' titled '2.0' done in collaboration with several East European studios where Belgrade based Crater Studio joined the project for final touches.

Serbia Film Commission is the industry based network of film production companies across film, television, advertising and post production that have been promoting Serbia for international filmmakers since 2009 and is working closely with Ministries and Government bodies to ensure Film Friendly environment in the country.