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The Odyssey press tour has so far featured stops in London, Paris, and Mumbai before moving on to New York City, Beijing and Seoul. This is the first time
that a major Hollywood studio has included the Indian city on its global tour and filmmaker Christopher Nolan, in a press conference attended by us, shared that he had planned to come earlier for a Mumbai premiere. Earlier, the Oscar-winning director had attended special talks and even screened his war film Dunkirk in the city. Nolan also shared why he loves coming back to India and its appreciative movie culture.
Christopher Nolan on bringing The Odyssey to Mumbai audiences
When asked why he chose India as part of the global tour, Christopher Nolan spoke about his long association with the city and the country. He recalled, "I first came to Mumbai years ago, brought by my friend Shivendra [Singh Dungarpur] to do a conference about the future of film. I met a lot of filmmakers and really got to know a little bit about the film culture here. I've never been anywhere in the world with an appreciation of what movies can be and what they should be for audiences and to me, it seemed crazy that we wouldn't be bringing our films here to premiere them for Mumbai audiences and I'm absolutely thrilled to be able to do this."
Nolan added, "We actually intended to come with Tenet originally because we filmed here in Mumbai and then because of the pandemic we weren't able to and so finally we're actually able to. It's a thrill; we've wanted to do this for years." The 2020 movie was filmed in Mumbai and also starred Dimple Kapadia, Himesh Patel and Denzil Smith.
Nolan on his Indian filmmaking experiences
Besides Tenet in Mumbai, Nolan had also filmed The Dark Knight Rises in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. Looking back at both instances, Nolan shared, "Certainly for somebody coming with fresh eyes to this city, everywhere you look there's something if you want to photograph as a filmmaker [and] everywhere you see beauty and texture. It was such a pleasure to engage with local crews and we had wonderful assistant directors and camera crews and everything. It was fantastic and we were shooting IMAX at that time."
Speaking about India's theatres and the premiere of The Odyssey at the Phoenix Palladium's IMAX theatre in Mumbai, the filmmaker said that it was a fun way to immerse yourself in the entire film. He said, "What we're trying to do is shoot the film in the best way possible so that all of these places around the world and in India in particular where an audience can go and see it on one of these massive screens [and] have the most incredible experience we can give them."
The Odyssey, which stars Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, and Tom Holland, releases in theatres on July 17. The film has been entirely shot with IMAX cameras.
