Alia Bhatt, director Sanjay Leela Bhansali back on sets of Gangubai Kathiawadi after almost seven months: report

Actor Alia Bhatt has resumed shoot of her upcoming film Gangubai Kathiawadi with director Sanjay Leela Bhansali. All work on the film had stopped owing to the coronavirus lockdown. Alia plays a gun-wielding brothel owner in the film.

The first-look of the film has been unveiled in January this year. The film’s shoot had commenced as well and an elaborate set had been created at Mumbai’s Film City. All of it came to a grinding halt in March after the pandemic-related lockdowns came into place.

According to a Mid Day report, after nearly seven months, the shoot has resumed with Alia and crew reporting on the sets at 7 pm. An unnamed source told the publication that Bhansali has been filming night sequences before the lockdown. “To maintain continuity, Sanjay sir picked up the shoot exactly from where he had left it. Since October 1, Alia and the team have been reporting to the set by 7 pm, and the stint goes on till the wee hours of the morning. Although a part of the grand set had been pulled down ahead of the monsoons, the portion resembling Kamathipura had been left untouched. So, the director has been able to shoot without any hiccup.”

The film has been adapted from one of the chapters of Hussain Zaidi’s book, Mafia Queens of Mumbai. The biographical drama will see Alia as Gangubai Kothewali, a fierce brothel owner who was rumoured to have had gangsters as her clients.

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Speaking about Alia’s preparation for the role, an earlier report in the same publication had quoted a source who had mentioned, “Alia’s paternal grandfather Nanabhai Bhatt was a Gujarati Brahmin who hailed from Kathiawad. But Alia is not familiar with the dialect as it is rarely used outside of the pocket in Gujarat. Since the filmmaker is meticulous in his prep, he wants a tutor who is fluent in the dialect. Bhansali has reached out to some of Mumbai’s famous Gujarati theatre personalities, including actors Manoj Joshi and Supriya Pathak, to help him in his search. The film will be shot simultaneously as she undertakes the month-long diction class. The dialect has a strong Sindh influence as the region was inhabited by the Kathis and Rajputs from present-day Rajasthan and Sindh.”

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