Insights from the 1971 expedition 
By IndiaFM News Bureau, March 2, 2007 - 03:48 IST
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1971 a heart wrenching film about POW’s stuck in Pakistani jails who are still waiting to return to their homeland, a wait which is never ending. Shooting a film like this means hoards of challenges and difficulties. But Amrit Sagar the director of the film bravely took up this challenge for the families of the POW’s .
To begin with Amrit had to perform an extensive research as the film is based in 1971. He had to keep in mind all kinds of possibilities from the kind of clothes worn, ammunition used etc. Talking about the research he said “I did research on everything from the army uniforms to grenades, guns and bullets to ID cards, we even researched on details like what films were playing at that time, which advertisements were there at that time, which cigarettes were sold at that time. Just to make sure that the conversation the men have was relevant”. Amrit was also able to get hold of a letter sent by a POW to his father. He says “It’s a real letter which came in 1974 to Dr. Suri from his son. And the handwriting experts from India have confirmed that it is Mr Suri’s handwriting.
Well for Amrit taking up the film wasn’t the only challenge, but the actual shoot also poised a dozen problems. He relates his experiences of shooting in the biting cold mountains of Manali and Rohtang Pass. “We were shooting at the peak of winter in Manali; we lost like 15 days of shooting due to bad weather. We would reach the location like 6am in the morning and be there till 4pm in the evening but land up taking only 2 shots and come back due to snow and hail storm. We were shooting at 12,000 ft altitude at night, even the army people don’t go there at night. But due to a night scene I along with my entire unit was up there shooting in the night. It was like a Herculean task which was made possible only because of my unit.”
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We had to hike up about 4 kms up to 14000ft as I wanted to shoot on flat land. The temperature fell to about -20 degrees and a storm broke out. Only 20 of my team members made it up there. |
If the Manali shoot seems like some expedition his Rohtang experience is sure to give you the chills. “We wanted to can the climax but unfortunately it rained a night before and the snow got all muddy. Then we went up to Rohtang pass where the road wasn’t even open and we had to break walls of 40 ft of snow. We actually had to hike up about 4 kms up to 14000ft as I wanted to shoot on flat land. The temperature fell to about -20 degrees and a storm broke out. Only 20 of my team members made it up there. After all this I thought it was too much of a risk to go ahead and I called for pack up, as soon as I said pack up the entire crew from Manali who were carrying my equipment just ran. So eventually me, Manoj Bajpai, my action director, my cameraman carried all the equipment and walked down 4 kms, meanwhile also helping others get down. But it was a beautiful as well as a scary experience. Later we did can the shot but at a location about 1km below the place where we were originally going to shoot.”
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