Love Sonia keeps it real
Hundreds of international films have been shot in Mumbai for years, but few have managed to capture the unpredictable underbelly of the city. For debutant director, Tabrez Noorani, this was a challenge he wanted to overcome. The hardest part to shoot for his upcoming film, Love Sonia, was to convey the restless energy of the city on film. To stay true to life, he chose to shoot at real locations, however dangerous it was.
The challenge was, a large part of the film is set in the seedy underbelly of Mumbai, where it’s almost impossible to shoot. However, the cast and crew were up for the challenge, with situations such as them having to shoot in the middle of the night in the bylanes of Grant Road, Mumbai, where human trafficking still exists. The cast and crew had to secretly recce the locations in the day, they would hide the camera and then shoot in the night. The female leads in the film, Richa Chadha, Mrunal Thakur and Freida Pinto had to shoot in these locations with no security and took considerable risk to ensure the film had an authentic feel to it.
“So part of the plan was to try shooting as much as we could to keep it real. A lot of these locations I’ve been visiting for the past ten years, a few of them changed and a few of them didn’t. For example, for a lot of the brothel sequences in Mumbai, I needed it to be real so we shot in real brothels, we literally were in and out, we had two windows where we had to go and shoot guerrilla style and come out,” shares Noorani.
Debutante Mrunal Thakur, the protagonist of the film, says, “We shot one hell of a scene, we were shooting in the middle of a busy road with hidden cameras, we only had four cars of our crew and the rest were all actual cars passing at crazy speeds with people walking as well. In the same scene, I had to cross the road and a bus passing by almost touched me, the whole team including the director of production was taken aback because it was so real and scary.”
Love Sonia is a story of hope and courage, a super hero without super powers. A 17-year-old travels across India, Hong Kong and Los Angeles to rescue her sister from the nexus that runs human trafficking across continents. Like all inspiring underdog films, the character of Sonia goes on a perilous journey and reveals a greater truth. The journey of a young girl, Love Sonia has already won hearts at screenings in London and Melbourne. The film features a strong ensemble cast starring Manoj Bajpayee, Richa Chadha, Rajkummar Rao, Sai Tamhankar, Adil Hussain, Anupam Kher, Demi Moore, Mark Duplass with Freida Pinto and introduces Mrunal Thakur and Riya Sisodiya.
Tamasha Talkies and Samraaj Talkies in association with India Take One Productions, Cinemantra Entertainment and Media and Dynasty Consulting Group presents Love Sonia. The film is Tabrez Noorani’s directorial debut, produced by the Academy Award nominated producer of Life of Pi, David Womark and Tabrez Noorani.
Co-produced by Amar Butala and executive producers include Shalini Thackeray, Deepak Nayar and Pravesh Sahni.
The Dynasty Consulting Group was instrumental in setting up the movie. Zee Studios will release the film in India. Love Sonia releases on September 14.