Bigelow, who shot to fame with 'The Hurt Locker' in 2010 by becoming the primary woman director to win the Academy Award for her film, has chosen locations in north India to shoot her movie at the elimination of Bin Laden.
Titled 'Zero Dark Thirty' or 'ZD30', her unit has shot at a dhaba and a few shops in Mani Majra, an old town suburb of Chandigarh, for the movie. Sources in Bigelow's film unit say one of the vital film scenes can be shot in and around Chandigarh and a few places in neighbouring Punjab.
To give the texture of a Pakistani town, the department stores have signboards written in Urdu, the language common in Pakistan, while three-wheeler auto-rickshaws and other vehicles too have gotten a brightly coloured layer of paint and Pakistani registration numbers.
A local hardware shop, Ramgarhia Ironmongery store have been renamed 'Shahzad Hardware and Paint Store' in Urdu. An online cafe and a phone call centre have also been given Pakistani names for the shots.
According to reports the supporting actors within the backdrop are mostly hired locally or from Delhi, their clothes and appearance was made to compare with life in Pakistan.
Bin Laden was hunted down by US special operation forces in a midnight raid at a 'safe house' within the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad in May last year. It saw the special forces landing at a compound and killing the Al Qaeda chief who masterminded the 9/11 attack within the US in 2001 and other terror operations around the world.
Incidentally, the shooting for the film began here just days after the Abbottabad 'safe house' was demolished by the authorities in Pakistan earlier this week.
The film is anticipated to be released on the end of this year.
