RT has documented the making of the upcoming movie ‘The Greatest of All Time’ by Indian director Venkat Prabhu
The shooting of the upcoming Indian film ‘The Greatest of All Time’ (GOAT), featuring South India’s superstar actor Vijay (Joseph Vijay Chandrasekhar), took place in Moscow last week. RT’s correspondent seized the opportunity to capture behind-the-scenes action and engage with cast and crew, who were keen to showcase Moscow’s allure to audiences in southern India.
“Moscow plays a very important part in the film,” director Venkat Prabhu told RT in an interview.
“[When picking a location], I wanted a new place which Indian audiences have not seen before,” he said, adding that he expects India and Russia to collaborate more when it comes to making movies. “Slowly, there will be better ties, better collaborations – cultural collaborations, collaborations in movies, entertainment; I think it will all happen now,” he added.
Alexey Laptev, a Russian stuntman who worked on the project, asserted that he liked the Indian film crew’s mentality. “They are interesting, sociable, cheerful, and positive people,” he told RT. According to a report in The Times of India, a chase scene featuring several motorcyclists was shot in the city.
ICYMI How Russia & India Are Producing Memorable Movies#CSK fan and movie director Venkat was in Moscow making “The GOAT” with @actorvijay and RT caught up with some of the crew.@vp_offcl earlier told of how Russia is a growing destination for Indian film.Lights, camera,… pic.twitter.com/otoFqxIlmM
— RT_India (@RT_India_news) April 22, 2024
During filming, all attention was on the film’s lead, Vijay, a veteran Tamil actor and household name in his home country. After shooting in Moscow, he returned to Chennai, Tamil Nadu, last week to cast his vote in the ongoing Indian election. ‘The Greatest of All Time’ is scheduled to be released in movie theaters worldwide on September 5.
Cinema in southern India is known for its over-the-top action scenes and pulsating musical numbers. It’s commonly divided by the four regional languages used in filming: Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada. Eight actors who made it big in the industry even have temples dedicated to them, according to media reports.
Over the past several years, the appeal of south Indian movies has spread beyond the region to the rest of India and beyond. In 2023, ‘Natu Natu’, a song from the Telugu movie ‘RRR’, directed by S. S. Rajamouli, received a ‘Best Original Song’ award at the Oscars – a first for the country.
Meanwhile, Bollywood has already made inroads into Russia. The Mumbai-based, Hindi-language film industry has already shot scenes in various locations throughout the country.
A motorbike chase sequence of the 2023 Bollywood blockbuster ‘Pathaan’, starring Shah Rukh Khan, was shot on frozen Lake Baikal in southern Siberia. ‘Tiger 3’, starring Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif, featured scenes filmed in the historic center of St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city.
India’s ties to Russian cinema date back decades; in the 1950s, Bollywood filmmaker Raj Kapoor’s classics from that decade were extremely popular in the Soviet Union. Other Bollywood stars, including Amitabh Bachchan, Rekha, and Mithun Chakraborty had millions of fans across the USSR.
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