Having shot Rinzing Denzongpa's debut film in Belarus pre-pandemic, director Nilesh Sahay on flying to Europe amid COVID-19 restrictions to complete Squad
Denzongpa on set with the director
The makers of Rinzing Denzongpa's debut vehicle, Squad, found themselves in a sticky situation in March. Only weeks after they had completed a marathon schedule in Belarus, the pandemic brought the world to a standstill, dashing their hopes of returning to the European country for the final schedule. After a patient wait, as the world opened up again, director Nilesh Sahay led his team to Minsk in November. However, procuring permission for international travel wasn't easy. Sahay recounts, "Flights to CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] countries were not available, and Vande Bharat wasn't operating. It took us three months to get the required permissions. But we eventually went to Belarus for 22 days, and shot for 14 days."
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A still from Squad
A compact crew of 50 headed from India, and 100 unit hands were hired in Minsk. The shooting guidelines were followed to the T as they shot eight hours a day. "We had 1,000 rapid testing kits, with stuntmen being tested every six hours. We would not shoot more than 50 minutes at a stretch, and the set was fumigated every hour," states the director. In the eight months that separated the two schedules, did he not consider filming the remaining sequences in India? "In the worst-case scenario, that would've been the only option. But that is not how we wanted to complete the film. Squad is the first Indian movie to have been shot there."
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