Representatives and campaigners from the Bhopal Medical Appeal were invited to attend a special screening of Ravi Kumar’s Bhopal A Prayer For Rain at the prestigious Plaza Hotel in New York on September the 18th. The film directed by Ravi Kumar stars Martin Sheen, Kal Penn, Mischa Barton, Tannishtha Chatterji, Fagun Thakar and Rajpal Yadav.
Billed as a historical drama, ‘A Prayer for Rain is set amid the horrific and infamous, real-life 1984 Union Carbide factory disaster in Bhopal. Martin Sheen (Apocalypse Now, Badlands, the West Wing) stars as Warren Anderson, CEO of Union Carbide Corporation at the time of the disaster, and still wanted in India on criminal charges. Mischa Barton (Notting Hill, The sixth Sense, The O.C ) plays Eva Gascon, a Paris Match reporter who aids an Indian Journalist (American Actor-Producer Kal Penn).
BMA campaigner Tim Edwards, and survivor-activist Sanjay Verma, were present at the screening in New York and were able to talk to many of the cast and journalists in attendance. They conducted interviews for Indian and worldwide press, and had the opportunity to talk about the Bhopal disaster, as well as the work of the BMA, with stars including Martin Sheen and Kal Penn.
The film, shot in various locations including Hyderabad, Mumbai, and the Golconda Fort , has been in development since 2008. The director Ravi Kumar, has described it as ‘dramatisation, inspired by real events’, stating that part of his desire to make this film is because a lot of people either don’t know about Bhopal or are forgetting, and hopes that the film will re-ignite people’s interest and prevent future Bhopals.
Produced by Chandni Roy (Sahara Move Studios) and Ravi Walia (Rising Star Entertainment), those present at the special screening have said it ‘grips your attention and you get sucked into the catastrophe and helplessness of innocent people who’re unabashedly used for the lust for corporate greed‘ and that it ‘resonated emotionally with all of those present’ . The film will be promoted in India and the U.S before a worldwide release in December 2014. You can click on the link below to see the trailer:
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