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In what's probably the most authentic and scrupulous replication of a real-life drama Apoorva Lakhia has
opted to take the entire recorded footage of the shoot-out at between cops and terrorists in a building in the
Lokhandwala in 1992 and use it in his film on the incident Shoot-out At Lokhandwala.
Says Lakhia, "We're very lucky to have visual documentation of the incident. What happened was that
Minty Tejpal, a journalist from a now-defunct video magazine Newstrack was interviewing Pooja Bedi in
Andheri when he heard a shoot-out had broken out in a building in Lokhandwala. Minty dumped Pooja and
ran to cover what turned out to be a historic encounter."
Lakhia has decided to use that one-hour special instalment of Newstrack in his film. " I don't know how I
can fit in the visuals because it is in the obsolete VHS format.
As it is, I'm shooting Shoot-Out in
the 16 mm format and blowing it up into the 70 mm to get that grainy gritty documentary look. I'm somehow
going to fit in Minty's footage."
What Lakhia has done for now is to replicate every detail of the live Newstrack footage in his film. "And I
mean every detail...from the furniture to the position of the boys and cops....every single detail I've taken
from Minty's film."
In this detailing of violence Lakhia hopes to live up to producer Sanjay Gupta's image as a purveyor of
true-life violence.
The film is complete....Except for Sanjay Dutt's portions which Lakhia hopes to complete in December.
"That would be the grand shoot-out with the entire cast. We're just waiting for the verdict on Sanju Sir. And
then we're done."
Wednesday, November 22, 2006 16:19 IST