Ramoji Film City

One of the bigger fountains at Ramoji Film City

This place is incredible. I'm not sure how big it is, but thousands of acres I think. It was built by a very rich Indian fellow by the name of Ramoji, who lives on the property in a mansion. He built it as a series of generic locations for Indian filmmakers. It has everything. It really is a backlot in the tradition of Old Hollywood. There are several enormous stages, but that's a tiny part of the complex. The whole of the property is crisscrossed with paths and roads. Everywhere there are gardens and buildings, most of which are shells, statues, fountains and covered walkways, most of which are plastic. The spaces are huge. There's a massive double mural behind wrought steel gates that form the entrance to Ramoji Film City. There a fountains spanning hundreds of meters, tanks and pools with sculpted gators and waterfalls tumbling down between plastic rocks under bright neon lights after dark. There are Chinese and Japanese gardens, palaces, an airport terminal, a lake and rocky cliffs. 

A crazy lightshow waterfall by night

I'm told that so far I have seen only 30% of the place! 

A beautiful garden by day

The other amazing and fascinating thing about Ramoji Film City is that is it kept immaculately clean, like Disneyland clean, by constant human attention. There are no street sweepers or leaf blowers. It's all done by people with stick brooms. The whole place, even the sets and the stages are kept clean of litter and debris all the time everywhere. This is so completely opposite of my experience in Mumbai that it is surreal. Disneyland being cleaner than Anaheim is one thing. RFC being cleaner than Mumbai is a different range altogether. 

As I said in a previous post, It reminds me a lot of Sans Souci actually, which is a series of palaces and gardens that Frederick the Great built in Postdam outside Berlin in Germany. The eclecticism of Sans Souci  was born of a desire to be inclusive of a wide range of culture. Here it's designed to give international feel to Bollywood movies. It also provides lots of easy-to-use and therefore inexpensive set pieces for films from all over India where budgets are even more spare than Bollywood. The trick, I am told is to avoid overusing locations and giving away that you shot at RFC rather than a "real" location. 

Just a note on the word "Bollywood": this is Hindi cinema, traditionally made in Mumbai and including the music and dance numbers that have made Bollywood famous. This is only a part of Indian cinema. India is host to dozens of languages and all have their own cinema. Many of these regional films are shot at RFC as well.

OK, the HOLLYWOOD sign is too small…

Ramoji Film City also has a full amusement park, regular bus tours and is a destination for a lot of Indian tourists who ride the busses and walk the grounds looking for favorite locations from their favorite films. Sometimes they also get to see film crews in action, which is of course a big draw, but nothing compared to the chances of seeing a star or a famous director. That happens, too. Sometimes they even ask for autographs or pictures with guys who's skin is so light they must be from Hollywood. :-)

RFC is also a prime location for Indian weddings, which are massive, often last several days and include dinners for hundreds of guests, all-night dance parties, fireworks, light shows, concerts and lots of drinking and dancing. Overall RFC is way quieter than Mumbai, but not when there's a wedding going on!

So, it's nice here. I was told it would be boring but we're too busy for that and it's nice to be in a place that is clean and (mostly) quiet, well-appointed and comfortable. I think I will miss it when we hit the stages in Mumbai again in mid-March.