City Beautiful plans to become film city

Chandigarh, Nov 16 (UNI) To develop Chandigarh as a film city, the UT administration will soon set up a media centre with an acting school on the recommendation of an advisory panel headed by veteran movie director Yash Chopra.

Mr Chopra, who is chairman of the Chandigarh Tourism Advisory Forum, told reporters here today that the proposed centre would teach acting, direction, cinematography, dance, editing and other aspects of film making.

The Chandigarh Tourism Advisory Forum, which was constituted by the UT administration to advise it to promote the City Beautiful as a destination for film makers, discussed the proposal in its first meeting yesterday.

Mr Chopra said he later took up the matter with UT administrator S F Rodrigues who assured that the administration would announce the project by January next.

The other members of the Advisory Forum included renowned actors Anupam Kher, Raj Babbar, theatre directors Neelam Mann Singh, Rani Balbir Kaur and noted humorist Jaspal Bhatti.

Mr Chopra said the forum was of the view that Chandigarh was an ideal location for tourism and could be promoted successfully throughout the world.

The Chandigarh administration would collaborate with the governments of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh to promote the region as a good location for film making.

The Forum, he said, expressed satisfaction that Chandigarh city had secured a place on the tentative list of UNESCO's World Heritage List.

Tourism would get a big boost with the city's inclusion in the UNESCO list, he added.

The meeting also discussed measures to facilitate and support the film makers coming to the city for shooting their films, Mr Chopra said.

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