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Filmmaker Richie Mehta, who gave audiences the International Emmy Award-winning show ‘Delhi Crime’, will now direct a project based on the Bhopal gas tragedy.
Ronnie Screwvala and Ramesh Krishnamoorthy’s Global One Studios are producing the project, which is based on Dominique Lapierre and Javier Moro’s 1997 book, ‘Five Past Midnight in Bhopal: The Epic Story of the World’s Deadliest Industrial Disaster’.
“The authors have done such a precise and fascinating job of mapping out the human story which creates a thread all through this disaster and is told in an impartial manner, which is very important to me as a storyteller to step back and allow the viewer to fill in that judgement, and in the case of something like this very harsh judgement, of course,” Mehta said.
He added, “I think the fact that it happened in the 1980s, it is starting to evaporate from the collective consciousness of young people. Many people don’t even know about it or they hear rumours of it in India and certainly internationally. And so I feel like it’s really important to get it out there in an impartial and extremely well-researched manner, which the authors have done.”
On the night of December 2-3, 1984, the poisonous methyl isocyanate gas leaked from the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, killing several thousand and adversely affecting the health of many others who continue to suffer ill health till date.
“We’ve been looking at storytelling in very many different ways. I believe this for global audiences and not just Indian audiences overall more and more, especially because of OTT platforms, the mixture and the combination of great storytelling with a sense of realism and moving towards more inspired by true events based on a true story, actually has a lot more gravitas,” Screwvala said.
