When Bollywood meets the Gornergrat
Story 35
About six years ago, an Indian film production team travelled to the Swiss Alps with a 35-strong crew to shoot a scene for Bollywood on the Gornergrat. Surrounded by the wintry landscape, dancers performed their choreographies. The unusual mix of Indian dance and Swiss landscape fascinated the Indian audience.
Amal and Desna, as we call the two main protagonists in this story, laugh at each other. She’s wearing a red skirt and a beautiful headdress. He is dressed in a black-red suit to match. The music starts and the two dance. They are standing on the terrace of the highest hotel in the Swiss Alps at 3,100 m.a.s.l. in front of the Kulmhotel Gornergrat. There are a few clouds, but the view is nevertheless breathtaking. From here, they overlook the Matterhorn and the surrounding four-thousand-metre peaks.
Indian dance in the Swiss Alps
The scene is from the Indian film “All around globe”. Together with a 35-member crew, Amal and Desna arrived from Mumbai to shoot a scene for the Bollywood film on the Gornergrat.
In addition to Amal and Desna, numerous other dancers can be seen in chic clothes. Blue and yellow dresses, hair decorations, turquoise suits, sunglasses and ties, the Indian film producers had everything in their luggage.
On the day of shooting, the backdrops were set up next to the Kulmhotel; the Gorner Glacier, the Matterhorn and the railway station with the Gornergrat Railway can be seen in the background.
Enthusiastic audience
When the film was released in 2017, Indian dance combined with the snowy landscape struck a chord with the Indian audience. On the one hand, because the Indian public is unfamiliar with the mountain landscape around the Gornergrat and, on the other, because Bollywood also went beyond the Indian borders. The images of the Gornergrat were seen by millions of people in India.
