Sometimes trying to achieve authenticity can result in a person facing awkward situations, as director Kabir Khan recently experienced. The subject of his next upcoming venture, ‘Phantom’ starring Saif Ali Khan and Katrina Kaif, is based on warfare, with the backdrop of the movie being Syria and Beirut.
Kabir Khan who has a fascination for shooting on actual locations, ‘Kabul Express’ being one of the example, which was shot in war torn locations of Afghanistan, wanted his new movie to be also shot in Beirut and Syria, which are considered to be sensitive areas. In spite of being aware of the fact that it would not be an easy job, Kabir still went ahead and procured the required permissions to be able to shoot in the said locations.
Contrary to the unit’s expectations, achieving the permissions was not so tough. But the real trouble started while the cast and the crew were filming the war scenes. They had put up a set of huge refugee camp, on the Syria-Lebanon border area and around 400 local artists were dressed up as rebel soldiers. Jeeps and trucks were also arranged according to the requirements of the sequence.
Soon enough Kabir and his unit were being surveyed by army airplanes, which had started hovering over them. It seems that the army had doubts of some suspicious activities taking place, going by the look of the set and the actors’ dresses. But thankfully no untoward incident took place as the Kabir succeeded in clarifying the situation to the Syrian army.
