Indo-American-Australian thriller film, Hotel Mumbai, was released in India last Friday (29th November) to mostly positive critical response.
Inspired by the 2009 documentary Surviving Mumbai about the 2008 Mumbai attacks on the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, the film is directed by Australian filmmaker Anthony Maras.
Anthony talked to Mid Day about humanising the terrorists in the film and said, “We wanted to tell stories from multiple perspectives. When we started understanding the stories of the gunmen, we realised their backgrounds were similar.”
He further spoke about their background. “They belonged to impoverished families, lacked education and had tough lives. They were ideal prey for strategic fundamentalist brainwashing. We found out about indoctrination, and that was important to focus on.”
The director revealed that going into the roots of their creation was part of his discussion with the team. “A large part of the discussion included how terrorists were created. They are regular human beings,” Anthony said.
Hotel Mumbai stars Dev Patel, Armie Hammer, Nazanin Boniadi, Anupam Kher, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Jason Isaacs, Suhail Nayyar, Nagesh Bhosle and Natasha Liu Bordizzo.
It had its world premiere at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival and had its Australian premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival on October last year. The film was released in Australia on 14 March 2019, and in the United States on 22 March 2019.
After the plan of a Netflix distribution in India faltered due to contract dispute, the film was picked up by Zee Studios and Purpose Entertainment for a theatrical release.