British filmmaker Gurinder Chadha’s Viceroy’s House, which reportedly chronicles the last months of Lord Mountbatten and his wife Edwina’s stay in India before British rule ended, has begun filming for eight weeks in Jodhpur. The project marks the first-time collaboration of Indian media conglomerate Reliance Entertainment with Britain’s Pathe.
Chadha of Bend It Like Beckham fame, along with Berges and Moira Buffini, has penned the screenplay of the film, which began filming on August 30.
It is produced by Deepak Nayar, Chadha and her husband Paul Mayeda Berges, and stars Hugh Bonneville as Lord Mountbatten, Gillian Anderson as Lady Mountbatten, Tanveer Ghaani as Jawaharlal Nehru, Neeraj Kabi as Mahatma Gandhi and Denzil Smith as Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
Actors Michael Gambon, Lily Travers, Manish Dayal, Om Puri, Hans Raj Hans and Huma Qureshi have also been cast in the film, which will focus on the Viceroy’s House in Delhi that was the home of the British rulers of India.
The brief of the film reads: “For six months in 1947, Lord Mountbatten assumed the post of the last Viceroy, charged with handing India back to its people. Mountbatten lived upstairs together with his wife and daughter.
“Downstairs lived their 500 Hindu, Muslim and Sikh servants. Against this turbulent backdrop, the personal and the political became deeply entwined and a decision was made that reverberates to this day.”
