Hawaizaada (2015)

Interesting facts

Hawaizaada (transl. 'Airborne') is a 2015 Indian Hindi drama film written, directed and produced by Vibhu Puri along with Reliance Entertainment. Inspired by the biography of Shivkar Bapuji Talpade, the film stars Ayushmann Khurrana, Mithun Chakraborty and Pallavi Sharda. Talpade, a resident of Bombay, is claimed to have constructed and flown an unmanned, heavier-than-air aircraft in 1895. Contemporary accounts of a successful flight do not exist, and no reliable historical records document its existence. The film depicts Talpade successfully conducting a manned flight. It was released on 30 January 2015. The film was declared tax-free in Uttar Pradesh.

Production

The film was originally titled Bambai Fairytale. Interested in creating a realistic 1895 setting, the filmmakers re-created an entire city from scratch in Gondal, Gujarat. The team also recreates several antiques. Director Vibhu Puri stated in an interview, "Many artefacts that we read about aren’t available in this day and age. So, we used our imagination and recreated them. We even designed the plane based on how it was described in the books."

The makers of Hawaizaada recreated a plane from scratch as Puri wanted to depict Shivkar Talpade's first plane in all authenticity. For this, the team of Hawaizaada did extensive research on the products used in ancient times for making the plane that is shown in the film.

The team was keen to install the plane at Girgaon Chowpatty, as that was where Shivkar Talpade’s first plane had taken off. But since the makers denied permissions from the authorities, the sequence was shot at Versova Beach in Mumbai.

Nearly 3,000 technicians had worked in this film for almost two years. The director insisted to bring "magical realism" for the audience.

Ayushmann Khurrana learned Marathi lines for the film, based on the character of Marathi scientist Shivkar Bapuji Talpade.

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