Exclusive report on 'Hello Mumbai'

ifilm's Exclusive report from behind the scenes of 'Hello Mumbai' directed by Qorban Mohamamdpour.

ifilm: ‘Hello Mumbai’, a bridge between the Iranian cinema and Bollywood. ‘Hello Mumbai’ is a love story. When an Iranian student who is studying in Mumbai, meets an Indian girl, his life changes.

Ghorban Mohamadpour (director): ‘Hello Mumbai’ narrates the story of an Iranian student in Mumbai. His classmate tries to commit suicide‌ but he gives her hope to live again. Then the two fall in love with each other.

Later on, he’s informed that his mother has passed away, so he goes back to Iran. But the girl has to wait too long for him to return.

Mohammadreza Golzar (actor): It’s a melodrama. I’m a medical student in Mumbai. I’m studying the final year to become a cardiothoracic surgeon.

Ghorban Mohamadpour: I worked on the screenplay for two years, and I tried my best to write a good one.

Mohammadreza Golzar: This movie is the first joint production between the Iranian and Indian film industries. 70% of our crew is Indian and 90% of the dialogues are in English.

Ms. Dia Mirza Co-stars with me. Mr. Gulshan Grover stars in the movie as well. There are some other India actors like Mr. Behrouza Chahel; he’s actually Indian-Iranian.

Benyamin plays the role of my housemate in this movie. In some parts the dialogues are Indian, and those parts that Benyamin and I star are in Persian.

Taher Pishvayee (production sound mixer): For me it was a real unique opportunity to be the sound recordist of this project because India has a special atmosphere.

The difference between Iran and India is the population and the vehicles in the streets; it was very difficult for us to record sound.

India’s movie industry is not like ours. They’re more into dubbing because of all the noise and the style they have in their movies. I was telling my Indian friends that it was a realistic movie and it’s not supposed to be dubbed.‌

Ghorban Mohamadpour: Bollywood is an industry that we don’t have in Iran. They produce 1200 movies per year. This industry is very organized and we had to live up to their standards.

Hassan Puya (director of photography): the truth is we were not familiar enough with the Indian film industry, especially these kinds of movies that are realistic and current and require more open spaces and the stories are shot in the streets, apartment units and outdoors.

I took my assistants from Iran who were 3-4 people. They have their own team there.

FM/AI