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Bollywood movie premiering in Berlin highlights India's hip-hop scene

Bollywood movie premiering in Berlin highlights Indias hiphop scene
Bollywood movie premiering in Berlin highlights India's hip-hop scene

2019-02-10 00:00:00 - Source: Baghdad Post

Actor Ranveer Singh said India

could be on the cusp of a musical revolution with the kind of Hindustani hip-hop

that is the subject of his new movie premiering at the Berlin Film Festival.

"Gully Boy",

directed by India's Zoya Akhtar, tells the fictional tale of Murad (Singh), a

student who lives in a slum and ends up temporarily substituting for his

injured father as chauffeur for a wealthy family.

He discovers a talent for

rapping and uses it to vent his anger about poverty and the chasm between rich

and poor, writing lines about babies cowering next to skyscrapers and wealthy

people's cars being big as poor people's homes.

"This film is something

that takes a genre of music that has essentially been underground in India so

far and brings it to the mainstream," Singh said.

"I want this to be the

beginning of something because I really think Hindustani hip-hop is a

revolution. It's more than just music. It's a musical and social

revolution," he said.

Singh said he grew up

listening to rap music and it "feels amazing" to have recorded five

songs for the film's soundtrack.

The coming-of-age film depicts

a young man who refuses to accept what his father has taught him - that he

cannot afford big dreams and should get a stable office job - and who defies

class conventions by secretly dating Safeena (Alia Bhatt), a doctor's daughter.

Safeena is confident and violently

attacks potential love rivals while Murad is a more sensitive and reserved

character.

"Traditionally our films

and gender dynamics are structured very differently," Singh said. "So

that's an aspect of our film that we're very proud of."

He said he initially wanted to

become an actor to be a virtuous hero with big muscles who beats other men up

and stands up for what is right, but Akhtar had brought out a part of him on

screen that was usually reserved for his friends and family.

"Zoya kind of very literally

and metaphorically peels away all of those layers to kind of tap into a very

real, very authentic side of me ... a little bit more quiet, more reserved,

more introverted and more internally feeling sensitive, vulnerable," he

said.

The movie - shot in Mumbai -

features slum dwellers picking through rubbish, abandoned children preparing

drugs to earn their keep and homes made from corrugated iron alongside wealthy

Indians attending posh parties, modern skyscrapers and a group of

camera-wielding British tourists visiting a slum.

It is one of around 400 films screening at this year's Berlinale

festival, which runs until Feb. 17.





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