Ghaziabad suspicious of Zilla Ghaziabad, producer to hold special screening on Wednesday

The people of Ghaziabad are not too pleased with the way they have been presumably portrayed in this Friday’s cops-as-robbers thriller Zilla Ghaziabad. The town on the outskirts of Delhi has lately been witness to protests from the local people who feel portraying their town as den of crime is wrong. The protests are similar to what Wasseypur witnessed when the film on the rather adventurous supposedly crime-infested life in Jharkhand was released. Protesting about the premature protests producer Vinod Bachchan says, “But the people of Wasseypur were upset after they saw Anurag Kashyap’s film. In my case they’re jumping to the conclusion that Zilla Ghaziabad portrays their town in a bad light without seeing the film.” So far the film has not been screened for any audience. But now on Wednesday Vinod Bachchan along with the film’s writer Vinay Sharma will travel to Ghaziabad to show the film to a selected audience. “We’re going to invite the sensible section of people in Ghaziabad whose opinion is valued in the area, to see our film and judge whether we’ve portrayed Ghaziabad in an unflattering light,” says the confident producer. Bachchan is sure once the local intelligentsia sees the film on Wednesday it would automatically move away from the area of suspicion. The film’s main character of the cop Pritam Singh played by Sanjay Dutt is apparently based on a real-life Ghaziabad cop who adopted somewhat unorthodox methods of dealing with crime. Apparently the locals fear the film would project the cop’s personality in a way that would demystify the much-revered character. But the producer would like to assure the local people that no damage would be done to Ghaziabad or its people when the film is released on Friday. “We wanted to be fair and authentic. That’s why we selected our writer Vinay Sharma from Ghaziabad. He knows the place and the people. We haven’t faked, falsified or sensationalized the truth,” assures Bachchan, as he prepares to screen the film in Ghaziabad on Wednesday. Vinod Bachchan is not too happy with the ‘A’ certificate given by the Censor Board Of Film Certification to his film Zilla Ghaziabad. Says Bachchan, “While films like Vishwaroop and Murder 3 were granted ‘UA’ certificates my film which, according to me, had nothing objectionable, was given an ‘A’ certificate.”