Hollywood film on Bhopal to face protest

Bhopal-based non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other organisations fighting for the survivors of Bhopal gas tragedy want a “remedy” for the upcoming film ‘Bhopal: Prayer for Rain’. The historical drama film starring big Hollywood figures like Martin Sheen and Kal Penn and Mischa Barton is likely to face fresh protests once it is released. The NGOs have termed the film as “another insult” to the gas victims.

A dramatised presentation of the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster, the film will be largely shot in India by debutant director Ravi Kumar. Sheen plays Warren Anderson, the then chief executive of Union Carbide, Mischa Barton as Eva Gascon, a fictitious journalist of the magazine Paris Match. Directed by a debutant Ravi Kuma and produced by Michael Cown, the film which is yet to be released has already attracted criticism from Bhopal. “We are writing letters to director Ravi Kumar, Martin Sheen and other actors of the film as the film has shown the Indian workers shirk responsibilities and that led to the disaster,” Satinath Sarangi, an activists of Bhopal Group for Information and Action told Business Standard, “People like journalist Rajkumar Keswani has been shown as making compromises under political pressure in the film.”

 

Sarangi, who has gone through the script of the film said, “Earlier the director was in touch with us but later he suddenly discontinued contacts and does not respond to us now.”

The NGOs want the director and actors to show a documentary about what exactly had happened on the night of December 2 when the world’s worst ever industrial disaster claimed thousands of lives in Bhopal. “After screening a documentary they should screen the film, which is fictitious. I hope a big personality like Martin Sheen will agree upon what we want in favour of sufferers,” Sarangi said. The film was expected to be released in 2010 and later in early 2011 but still has not been released.