《Superboys of Malegaon》电影场景搭建丨印度丨Sally White

How the sets of Superboys of Malegaon captured the nostalgic charm of a sleepy Indian city. Production Designer Sally White peels back the curtain on the resourceful design and local textures that brought Malegaon’s world to life on screen, for Reema Kagti’s Superboys of Malegaon

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Malegaon is a city of contrasts—where a river splits the landscape, yet a masjid and a mandir stand side by side, mirroring the spirit of coexistence that defines this small but storied town. It has always felt destined for something bigger, but what that would be remains uncertain. Then came Nasir Sheikh, Akram Khan, Farogh Jafri, Shafique, and Shakeel Bharti. “Bambai nahi jaa sakte, Bambai ko idhar laana padega,” they declared. If they couldn’t make it to Mumbai’s film industry, they would bring cinema to Malegaon.

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This relentless passion is at the heart of Superboys of Malegaon, Reema Kagti’s ode to storytelling. In the film, Adarsh Gourav’s Nasir captures the city’s spirit in a single line: “Idhar ke logo ke liye, idhar ke logo ke saath, Malegaon ki Sholay.” It’s this love for filmmaking—born out of necessity, determination, and sheer imagination—that defines the world production designer Sally White was tasked with bringing to life.

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When White first arrived in Malegaon in September 2022, she was an anomaly. Strangers handed her their children, posed for photos, and embraced her presence with the same warmth that permeates Malegaon itself. “The thing about Malegaon is that it’s very clean. It felt like a sleepy time warp,” White recalls. It was a city unlike any she had worked in before, and one that carried a distinct visual identity. But as the team began the recce for locations, a realisation set in—shooting in Malegaon wasn’t feasible due to logistical constraints.

Instead, Malegaon had to be built—from the ground up—on the outskirts of Nashik. “We realised we had to build the street, where the archway is, where the video parlour is—that’s all built. That’s all set,” White explains. A full-scale recreation of Malegaon’s lanes took shape, with carefully constructed storefronts, makeshift signage, and textured facades.

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The process of world-building was as much about reconstruction as it was about reinvention. Malegaon’s film industry has always thrived on blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality—stories stitched together with whatever was available, a cinema of resourcefulness. For White, the challenge wasn’t just about replicating the city’s architecture but distilling its essence. “It was just a lot of research—looking at the architecture of Malegaon, understanding its era, its colour palette—and translating that into the film,” she says.

This meant studying its streets with a forensic eye—tracing the rhythms of daily life, mapping the economy of small vendors. “We had every kind—from paan vendors to lottery ticket sellers, secondhand goods stalls to bicycle repair shops.” Every element had to be embedded in the visual language of the town.

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But the film’s emotional core lay elsewhere—in a dimly lit, nostalgia-soaked video parlour, the kind that still stands in Malegaon and Nashik, relics of a time when movies weren’t just entertainment but an escape. “We built the video parlour based on the ones we visited,” White explains. But replication alone wouldn’t do, it had to feel inherited, brimming with history. “We wanted not just a video parlour but an entrance that looked like it had been passed down—something they inherited from their father. That’s where ‘Prince Parlour’ came from, with the old-style lettering on the building.”

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For a film where the location is in the title, getting the setting right is non-negotiable—and setting is as much about time as it is about place. Framing posed a challenge. “Newer buildings in the background didn’t fit the aesthetic, so we had to design structures to block those views.”

Malegaon, isolated from the rapid modernisation of Mumbai, had a visual language of its own—one that resisted time rather than followed it. “There wasn’t anything that you could get in Bombay,” White explains. “Even in 1990, Bombay itself wasn’t filled with Western influence. So for Malegaon, we had to go even further back.” This temporal lag shaped everything—from sun-faded walls to fabrics—because a set isn’t just what’s in the frame, but the world beyond it.

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As time passed, spaces evolved with the characters, most notably the video parlour. What started as a scrappy projection room became a restaurant, reflecting Nasir’s journey. “Did you notice the parrot mural? Beside it, the food menu and a giant portrait—that’s Nasir’s father,” White said. “He handed it to me one day, wanting it used. I’m glad it was seen.” These personal touches—real objects, fabrics, faces—made Malegaon feel less like a set and more like a memory.

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While realism grounded every frame, Kagti and White wove in a layer of whimsy—an almost dreamlike quality that mirrored the minds of Malegaon’s inhabitants, one of whom was Akram, whose photo studio was one of the other vital spaces. The painted backdrops—lush, theatrical, and slightly exaggerated—pushed the film’s visual language into a space that wasn’t entirely real but felt true to Malegaon’s spirit. “That actually came from a book Zoya gave me. We pushed it, stylised it, but it all came from Malegaon itself,” White explains.

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The recreation didn’t stop at architecture; it extended to the language of the streets—the shop signs, the hand-painted advertisements, the Bollywood posters curling at the edges. These layers of text weren’t just decoration, they were cultural imprints, anchoring the town’s identity in its visual clutter.

Jahanvi Singh, the film’s graphic designer, brought its details to life, creating shop signs and posters in a massive undertaking. White’s longtime set builder, Shekhar, was instrumental, as was Director of Photography Swapnil Sonwane, whose eye for detail shaped the film’s world. It was Sonwane who gave White Harry Gruyaert: India: Towards an Architecture of Belonging, which became a key reference.

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Materials played an important role in grounding the film in reality. “We used everything—rubber, metal, dye, paint, plaster,” White explains. But there were subtle shifts in approach—“I did a lot of grills, you know, looking through windows much more than usual.” Even flooring became an essential part of the visual language. “That old-fashioned vinyl roll—we bought all of it in Malegaon.”

Some props were irreplaceable. “You couldn’t find those children’s tricycles anywhere else—only Malegaon has them.” Fabrics became an obsession. “Curtains were everywhere, even in the video parlour,” White says. Sourcing them wasn’t easy. “We bought some in Nashik, some in Malegaon, and even swapped people’s curtains for new ones to use the originals.”

Layers of fabric, draped over doorways and rooms, added warmth—softening the hard lines of the built environment.

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In the end, the magic of Superboys of Malegaon lay in how it blurred the line between the real and the imagined. By weaving in the lived realities of Malegaon—its language, its materials, its people—the film’s production design became an extension of its story. It wasn’t about recreating a place; it was about honouring it. And in doing so, they didn’t just capture Malegaon—they made it immortal, just like Nasir and Co. who put this little town in Maharashtra on the map with their cinema.