Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar is a lavish period drama filmed on a Mumbai set painstakingly built to resemble the real location. It’s a tale of love and betrayal in the turbulent lives of courtesans in pre-independence India, pulling from real history to inform its story.
Heeramandi: Is It A Real Place?
The area that was once known as Heera Mandi is a historically significant and well-known area found within the walled city of Lahore in Pakistan.
Heera Mandi has a long and well-documented history, and back in the fifteenth century, it was a food grain market. More controversially, it was known for being the center of the courtesan culture of India before it was divided.
Heera Mandi would become the home for many women who were brought to the region from places such as Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, who were trained to become dancers and performers of Indian dance, to entertain people who would visit there.
Filming Locations Explained
Despite being set in a famed area of Pakistan, Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar was filmed primarily in Mumbai, India.
An article in The New York Times explored the show’s production and revealed that the bulk of the filming was done in Mumbai, particularly on a stunning hangar that housed a three-acre set.
The Mumbai Skyline | Image via Wikipedia
The extensive set was built specifically for the production, and it would take nearly ten months to create the spectacular location complete with vintage furniture and hand-painted set decoration to help create the illusion of Lahore in the 1900’s.
The designers on the show would take inspiration from performers such as Patience Cooper, Suraiva Lata, and Noor Jehan.
Production Timeline
Here’s a brief overview of how Heeramandi made it to our screens:
- Early reports indicated that production was to start on the series as far back as April 2021, and prior to that, the project had been on the back burner of director Sanjay Leela Bhansal for over a decade.
- Filming started in June 2022 and would take a year to complete.
- Filming wrapped in May 2023, but the director was unsatisfied with some aspects of the show, and reshoots were ordered that would continue through to June of 2023. Bhansali would work on the all-important pilot for the show, and director Mitakshara Kumar would take the chair for the remaining episodes.
- A trailer (see below) dropped in early April.
- Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar officially debuted on Netflix on May 1st, 2024.
Who Created and Produced Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar?
Heeramandi was created for Netflix by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who would also direct the pilot episode, and the director would be on hand to produce the series through his company Bhansali Productions.
As well as directing and producing, SLB, as he is often known, is a music composer, working mainly in Hindi films. The highly respected filmmaker is the recipient of many awards including seven National Film Awards and twelve Filmfare Awards. Considered to be one of Indian cinema’s most prestigious creators, he was honored with the Padma Shiri from the Government of India.
As well as SLB, Prerna Singh is named as an executive producer on the show.
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