Berlin, 24. August 2010 In a joint effort, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin Tourismus Marketing (BTM), Berlin Partner and Berlin airports have managed to bring one of the most important Bollywood productions to the German capital. Shah Rukh Khan revealed back in February at the Berlinale film festival that he would like to shoot his next film in Berlin. After an intensive search for locations assisted by the Berlin Brandenburg Film Commission (bbfc), the producers of Excel Entertainment from India have now decided that the sequel of the action film “Don”, one of the most successful Indian

blockbusters, should be shot in the German capital.

Filming is scheduled to begin in the late autumn. The shooting of “Don 2” is

expected to take place over 50 days at well-known locations around the city

under the direction of Farhan Akhtar, with Berlin seeing off some fierce

international competition.

Burkhard Kieker, CEO of BTM said, “We have been promoting this idea for more than four years. It’s incredible that it will actually be realized now. This could be the breakthrough needed for making the Berlin destination known to the Indian market. It's exactly what we want.”

René Gurka, Managing Director of Berlin Partner added, “A Bollywood blockbuster set in Berlin will offer a tremendous boost in terms of the image of our city in India as a place in which to live and work and, in particular, it will open up new opportunities in Asia for the Berlin media industry.”

Managing Director of Medienboard, Kirsten Niehuus said, “After Til Schweiger, Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz, we are very much looking forward to welcoming Shah Rukh Khan to Berlin on the set of his new film in the late autumn. The Indian superstar and Berlin, the movie metropolis, will form a fantastic cinematic couple for the largest audience in the world. When the film is shown in cinemas in 2011, German fans will be joined by the entire movie-struck Indian subcontinent as they watch Don’s thrilling chase through Berlin!”

Bollywood has become synonymous with mainstream Indian cinema. Derived from “Bombay” and “Hollywood”, the term was coined at the end of the 1980s by film critics to refer to the Indian film industry which, with 700 to 1,000 feature films a year, is considered the most productive in the world. It employs around six million people in production, sales and screening. Bollywood films are all about love, tragedy, tradition and culture. Dancing and singing also play a central role.