TIGERS. a film by Danis Tanović

Transcription

1 TIGERS a film by Danis Tanović

2 Thirty five years ago, millions of people began a boycott of infant formula manufacturers in protest at the aggressive marketing of breast milk substitutes which, due to unsafe water supplies and poverty, were leading to the deaths of millions of babies in the Third World. The protests led to major changes; new regulations banned direct advertising and many people believed the problem had gone away. It hasn t. Devastated when he discovers the effects of the infant formula he s peddling, a young salesman takes on a multinational corporation, in this based-on-fact drama from Academy Award-winning director Danis Tanović (No Man s Land).

3 SYNOPSIS Two filmmakers return from a research trip to Pakistan, troubled by inconsistencies in the story they are writing. They ask their subject, Ayan a young Pakistani salesman to tell his story to their financiers lawyer, on the record. If his story is true, and he can prove it s true, they can make the film. If not, the huge corporation whose methods they are attacking, could destroy them. Ayan s story begins with his marriage to the beautiful Zainab. Seeing him struggle to sell unbranded local pharmaceuticals, she persuades him to try for a job with a prestigious multinational Lasta Foods, known for their infant formulas. To his amazement, and despite his lack of a college diploma, he s hired. It s a dream come true for a common local boy without a college degree. Ayan takes Lasta s fighting tiger attitude training to heart and his growl gets stronger everyday. He uses all his skills and incentives to persuade doctors and other health professionals to recommend his products. Soon he s the star salesman and life is good. A son is born and soon another child is on the way. Faiz, one of Ayan s new doctor friends, goes off to Karachi to study public health issues. When he returns, a couple of years later, he s a changed man. He hauls Ayan into a children s emergency room. Babies are dying and the doctor says it s all Ayan s fault. Faiz reveals a startling truth: Most of his patients don t have access to clean water. They mix infant formula in filthy water and give it to their babies, who get diarrhoea. Or because it s so expensive they dilute it and malnutrition follows. Breastfeeding would pass on natural immunities but mothers are persuaded to use formula instead. These babies are dying because of Ayan s work.

4 Devastated, Ayan visits a slum area and sees unsafe water being used everywhere. He is a father himself; he must stop these babies from dying. He is shocked that his Lasta supervisor is aware of everything, but simply blames the government for not solving the water problem. He mocks Ayan for complicating his good life for nothing. Ayan quits his job and vows to divulge the scandal behind the corporation s infant milk formula. With the help of his legalese-friendly father, Ayan gives notice to his former employers, telling them to stop marketing breastmilk substitutes in Pakistan and presenting evidence of how he was authorised by them to breach their own rules. It s David versus Goliath but this underdog will barely get the chance to fight. The other salesmen in the town hear he is threatening their livelihoods and go after him. Two men come to Faiz s home in the middle of the night and warn him that no-one on Ayan s side will be spared. Alone and desperate, Ayan fears his desire to do the right thing has brought his family to ruin. Then the head of a local action group shows him evidence that people in the west have, for years, been protesting over infant deaths in the third world. He realises he must take a stand. A western TV crew make a documentary about his story and take him to Germany to promote it. He s promised he will return to Pakistan as a hero, but on the night of transmission, his former employers reveal a dark secret and suddenly it seems Ayan s story must go untold. Shaken by the true complexities of Ayan s experiences, the filmmakers realise they must tell the whole story, warts and all. But they too will soon discover the real power of a multinational corporation. Can the truth ever be told?

5 THE PRODUCTION STORY In 2006, when Danis Tanović was first told the true story that would lead to TIGERS his first response was that he needed to go to Pakistan straight away. Surely this was an old story? People had been protesting about the mis-marketing of infant formula for decades. So he set off, with co-writer Andy Paterson, to Lahore and Sialkot to visit hospitals and talk to doctors. Wherever they went, it was the same response. The tactics may have changed, but the problem remained. Mothers were still being persuaded to spend their money on a product many of them could not use safely and infants were still dying. The filmmakers experienced the same shock as the young salesman in the story; how could it be that decades on from an international boycott of one of the key infant formula manufacturers, the same old story was still being played out? Their focus shifted to how the film should work. The true story focused on one young salesman working for Nestlé, but they weren t the only company making and marketing infant formula and the filmmakers wanted to make a more general point. So the decision was made to change the names, although the story easy to find on the internet would still have to be true in every detail, to ensure the film was legally safe. The bulk of the story fell into place reasonably easily. The hero of the film was a struggling salesman. When he got a job with a multinational his whole neighbourhood rejoiced. He set out to be the best salesman they d ever had. Then he realised the consequences of his work and tried to put a stop to it. He made big enemies, but fought the good fight before getting scared and making the mistake which would cost him everything and allow the manufacturers to continue marketing their product unchallenged. As the story shows, Ayan s employers had stopped the TV broadcast of his story being shown by accusing him of fraud and blackmail. They assumed that would be enough to stop the film too. It nearly was.

6 Financing films is a risky business and every production takes out insurance against the possibility of legal challenges. The producers had plenty of experience in backing up every detail of their screenplays to ensure that the content was fact-based and provably true. But much as the insurers wanted to help, they wouldn t cover TIGERS. Not because it wasn t true, but because the corporation at the heart of the story had such deep pockets that the risk of their attempting to block the film and the cost of defending any such actions in court was considered too high. Without insurance, the backers wouldn t take that risk and just weeks before filming was due to begin in early 2007, the production was shut down. Suddenly an entirely different aspect of the story took centre stage. If this film couldn t be made, how could any true story about a rich corporation be told? That question found its way into the screenplay, in an echo of the original story. A production which already involved Bosnian, French and British filmmakers, was now rescued by Indian financiers and producers. Prashita Chaudhary and Guneet Monga stepped in to make the film possible, with star Emraan Hashmi coming on board for his first non-bollywood, English language role. The first night of the shoot in Germany was interrupted briefly while director Danis Tanović donned his black tie to receive two awards for AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF AN IRON PICKER at the closing ceremony of the 2013 Berlin Film Festival. The shoot then moved to India with locations in the Punjab standing in for Pakistan. Guneet Monga risked everything to ensure the director could do justice to the story. Every member of an extraordinarily dedicated crew felt the moral responsibility to finally bring this untold story to the big screen. Later, Danny Huston and Khalid Abdalla joined the cast for the London shoot, capturing the events of a few years earlier, when it seemed the film could never be made.

7 COMMENTS FROM DIRECTOR DANIS TANOVIĆ If it s a true story, why did you change the names? Listen, when you try to make a film like this you come up against a lot of problems. We were concerned about being able to make the film at all so we accepted the decision to change the names if that helped people back it. But it didn t feel right so we had to make a decision. The film is a true story and you don t actually protect yourself by changing the names if the story is recognisable you still have to be able to convince the lawyers that everything in the film can be backed up. So we decided to let the filmmakers in the story make the point that the real guy worked for Nestlé. You have to remember that there were a lot of other companies marketing and selling infant formula so we wanted to make that point too. Has anything in Syed Aamir Raza s real-life story been altered for the sake of artistic license? We tried to be as true to the details of Aamir s story as possible so obviously his testimony was crucial. But we backed it up with interviews with colleagues, friends, representations from his former employer and, of course, a huge amount of research into the whole infant formula problem. Where it was impossible to know the truth, for example in the case of the college diploma, we showed both sides of the story. And, as in the film, we had to make it clear to Aamir that we had to tell the story warts and all. Nestlé kept trying to persuade us that Aamir had tried to get a pay off but we already knew and accepted that. It doesn t change the fact that this problem, of babies dying because of mis-use of infant formula, still exists on a massive scale.

8 What attracted you to the project? I have five children and I knew a little about this problem when I first heard the story but I couldn t believe it was still going on. Going to Pakistan for the first time was shocking. We wandered into hospitals and talked to doctors who couldn t have possibly known we were coming. Everywhere we went it was the same story: the tactics change but the babies still die. Aamir s story seemed to me to be a great way to understand how this operates on the ground, hopefully without being preachy. And once we discovered just how hard it was to tell a story like this we had little choice but to persist. Some very serious financiers wanted to make the film but were ultimately scared off by the threat of being sued. It can t be acceptable that a multinational can stop stories being told purely by virtue of their deep pockets. There are scenes where sick babies are seen. Did you film this or is this stock footage of babies sickened due to bad infant formula? We used some footage from the 1989 Australian ABC documentary in the scenes where Maggi and Faiz are watching on television but we sent our own team to film in hospitals in Pakistan in We actually decided that if they came back having been unable to find examples we should reconsider the relevance of the story. I wish that had been the case but, sadly, it was all too easy for them. The irony is that the last speech of the 1989 documentary is let s hope we re not still reporting on this problem in 15 years time. 25 years on and little has changed. Having gone through so much research and finally actually making the film, do you think that one day the problem can be solved to stop the babies from dying? What is stopping the process? Who/what is the real culprit? As we say in the film, it s an old story that keeps repeating itself. The formula manufacturers know babies fed on formula are more likely to become sick than breast fed babies and in conditions of poverty more likely to die but the situation continues. It s not just our sources who say this. There are recent surveys from Pakistan in 2012, for example saying that one fifth of health professionals have received gifts from baby food representatives. Over half were from Nestlé. And 84% of mothers interviewed said in 2012 that they had been actively advised to use infant formula for children under the age of 6 months and half of those said they had received that advice from doctors. In India, where the government enforces the rules, for example, against salesman targetting doctors, sales are static. In China where, so far, the rules are not enforced so firmly, sales are rising sharply. The good news is that 35 countries now have clear laws that ban the practices we show in the film. One positive action from the publicity around Tigers would be seeing the regulations enforced in Pakistan after all these years. Its also worth noting that since the millennium, many more people now have better access to drinking water and sanitation and there is better access to health care. But still, the world is an unequal and dangerous place for poor children. 2.5 billion people, more than one third of the world s population, have no sanitation a billion people have nowhere to defecate except in the street or field. So the message is that governments need to regulate and the only way to make that happen is to make a lot of noise. Insist on seeing this film, tell your friends to see it and go look at the websites. You have to make governments see that they ll be more popular by dealing with this problem than listening to the lobbying from the manufacturers.

9 How was it working with Emraan Hashmi? Many of the scenes are in Hindi. How did you approach this as you don t speak Hindi. Emraan understood the story completely and was passionate about telling the story. He s very collaborative and helped me a lot when it came to the language. We actually used an Urdu dialect which Hindi speakers can easily understand and which was comfortable for Emraan. We had talked about making the whole film in English but I felt that was wrong. To be authentic we had them speak a native language in private and use English to impress, or when they were talking to Europeans.

10 DANIS TANOVIĆ writer-director TIGERS is Danis Tanović s sixth feature film. His previous feature, AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF AN IRON PICKER, won two Silver Bears at the 2013 Berlin Film Festival, the Grand Jury Prize and Best Actor for Nazif Mujic, who made his debut re-enacting his own story in the film. Tanović s 2001 debut feature NO MAN S LAND won the Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. Set in the midst of the Bosnian war in 1993, NO MAN S LAND also won Best Script prizes at the Cannes Film Festival and European Film Awards. The film received over 40 international awards, making it one of the most awarded first feature films in history. Tanović has made two other films about war and its consequences. CIRKUS COLUMBIA is set in the period just before the conflict reaches his native Bosnia & Herzegovina, and the Englishlanguage TRIAGE, starring Colin Farrell, dealt with post-war trauma. Tanović was born in 1969 in Zenica, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and raised in Sarajevo where he studied film directing at Academy of Perfoming Arts Sarajevo. When Sarajevo fell under siege, he spent two years on the frontline filming for the army. The material that Tanović and his colleagues produced on these dangerous missions has been seen in many films and news reports about the Bosnian war. In 1994, Tanović emigrated to Belgium to continue his film studies at INSAS film school and he began making shorts and documentaries. In 2005, Tanović made the French-language feature HELL (L ENFER), from a script co-written by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski. The film starred many of France s finest actors, including Emmanuelle Beart, Guillaume Canet, Jacques Gamblin, Carole Bouquet and Jean Rochefort. FEATURE FILMS 2014 TIGERS 2013 AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF AN IRON PICKER 2010 CIRKUS COLUMBIA 2009 TRIAGE 2005 L ENFER (HELL) 2001 NO MAN S LAND

11 EMRAAN HASHMI (as Ayan) Emraan Hashmi is one of the most versatile and popular actors of the Indian Film Industry. His recent films include crime thriller Raja Natwarlal (2014, dir. Kunal Deshmukh), comedy Ghanchakkar (2013, dir. Raj Kumar Gupta) and supernatural thriller Ek Thi Daayan (2013, dir. Kannan Iyer). Danis Tanović s TIGERS is his first role in a non-bollywood film. Emraan garnered much praise for his power-packed performances in Once Upon a Time in Mumbai (2010, dir. Milan Luthria), The Dirty Picture (2011, dir. Milan Luthria) and Shanghai (2012, dkr. Dibakar Banerjee). With over 30 films to his credit and a huge fan-following in both India and Pakistan, Emraan s successful track record at the box office is undeniable. He is often referred to as the Box Office Wonder and more affedtionately among fans as Hitman Hashmi. Born 24 March 1979, Emraan made his acting debut in 2003 with Footpath (dir. Vikram Bhatt) and followed with popular romantic thriller Murder (2004, dir. Anurag Basu). He subsequently appeared in a string of hits Zeher (2005, dir. Mohit Suri), Aashiq Banaaya Aapne/aka Love Takes Over (2005, dir. Aditya Datt), Kalyug (2005, dir. Mohit Suri) and Gangster (2006, dir. Anurag Basu).

12 COMMENTS from ActoR EmraaN Hashmi How was playing in TIGERS different than your other acting projects? It was completely different. It was unlike anything I had done before. Back in India, I have done over 30 films playing the protagonist in escapist mainstream fare, which I am very proud of. That has given me my identity and helped run my kitchen. But Bollywood cinema doesn t require you to delve deep into your character and be in the moment all the time. Of course with exception. Like I did a film with Dibakar Banerjee called Shanghai, which needed me to be completely immersed in another character. TIGERS was exactly that and a lot more. To not just be an actor but to own the film. To understand the issue that the film is trying to talk about and then slip into the character I am playing. It really challenged the actor in me and I am happy that I went through it because by the time it ended, it felt very liberating. What attracted you to the project? Danis Tanović, first and foremost. His body of work speaks for itself and I don t really need to tell you about the fantastic films he has made. So with him helming the project, I knew I would be in safe hands even though TIGERS was going to be virgin territory for me. Also, I knew that this film will make me reach out to an altogether new audience. The character spoke to me. It felt that only I could play this. When you watch the film, you will know. Tell us about the character you play and the conflicts of his story. I play Ayan, who is a struggling young salesman in the far north east of Pakistan, when we first meet him. To the delight of his family and his pretty new wife he secures a job with a prestigious multi-national corporation, marketing infant formula milk. He uses all his skills and he is skillful to convince doctors and other health care professionals that his products are the best in the market. Soon, he s the star salesman and life is good. But then when Ayan learns from a doctor that babies are dying after having the milk he is selling, he is devastated and goes through an inner turmoil. It s then he decides to do something about it.

13 Were you familiar with the real-life incidents that the screenplay is based on? How did that make you feel when you heard about that? Do you have children of your own? Yes I have a four-and-a-half year old son. When I was first told that the events depicted in the screenplay are based on reallife incidents, I was very shaken. To be honest, I was not aware of this. I wanted to know more. Danis and his research team and writing team helped me with all the information out there. I felt very strongly about it. Children are precious, very precious. And their initial years are completely in the hands of us parents and the choices we make. Now, if such lethal products are out there, parents can be really helpless. What do you think should be done as this problem continues? Do you think TIGERS will raise awareness about the problem and hopefully offer some solution? I do hope TIGERS will raise awareness about the problem for starters. The film shows incidents as they happened, characters as they were. Danis has this masterly touch of making cinema, which seems absolutely real. And here he is showing a real incident, a real issue. People need to know that this problem still persists and there should be enough noise for the big companies to feel threatened. I don t think there is an instant solution but TIGERS can be the start.

14 Prashita Chaudhary the power producer Prashita Chaudhary is the new force in the movies. Having launched her production company, Cinemorphic in 2012, Prashita has produced Oscar-winning director Danis Tanović s (No Man s Land) forthcoming film starring Emraan Hashmi, titled Tigers along with Guneet Monga of Sikhya Entertainment and others. That apart, she was also one of the producers on Ari Folman s film The Congress which was selected to open the Directors Fortnight section at the 66th Cannes film festival, At Cannes, she also announced her collaboration with renowned Hollywood producer, Edward Pressman for the film The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan. Hailing from Delhi, Prashita Chaudhary has had a long association with the Indian film industry. A young entrepreneur, she completed her schooling at the prestigious Sophia Girls School following which she pursued a production diploma from London. I ve always been associated with Indian movies, be it with friends in the industry or through productions. Following my production course, I was helping my younger brother set his production firm and then slowly gravitated towards wanting to carve my own. That s how the journey began, she says. Besides the international projects, Prashita is also associated with films like AKFPL/Sikhya Entertainment s Peddlers, directed by Vasan Bala, which was selected for the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Closer home, she has also co-produced Rajnikanth s last released film, Kochadaiyaan. I believe cinema to be a barrier breaking medium, says the beautiful lady. If you look at the projects that I am associated with you will realize that they are commercially sound and quality films of stories that need to be told. I am fortunate to be working with some of the best in the industry and look forward to partnering with like minded individuals who believe in the power of cinema. Often spotted at major high profile events in Delhi and Mumbai, Prashita considers that aspect to be her social life and is focused in creating her professional mark as a producer parallely. I look forward to collaborating on various sorts of cinema and produce pathbreaking content. While to me the dynamics of the project are important, I do not base my association on a project based on what numbers the project will do, but rather what I can bring to the table as a producer in ensuring the project gets every bit of the attention it deserves. Producer Guneet Monga Voted as the top 12 women achievers in the Global Entertainment industry by Hollywood Reporter & among the top 50 Indians changing India by India Today, Guneet Monga has been a game-changer in representing Indian cinema at a global level. Awarded the Most Powerful Woman Entrepreneur in the Indian Entertainment Industry by Business Today, Monga, in a short span of time, has carved her niche. With her films like Peddlers, Monsoon Shootout and more premiering at prestigious film festivals like Cannes, Venice, Sundance, Toronto, BFI: London and more, Guneet is also among the few Indian producers who has collaborated with some of the most reputed sales agents like The Match Factory and Elle Driver. She has to her credit some path breaking films including the Oscar nominated short film Kavi directed by Gregg Helvey, the cult film Gangs of Wasseypur, Part I & II (2012), That Girl In Yellow Boots (2011) and Shaitan (2011). Fast-forward to 2013, she produced the blockbuster The Lunchbox which became a trailblazer. Along with producing films, Monga also handles international sales & distribution for Independents. Her recently project Titli directed by Kanu Behl and produced by Yash Raj Films has been making news across territories. Currently, she s working on a number of projects which include the Hindi remake of Intouchables with Karan Johar, the romantic musical Zubaan and the hard-hitting Tigers with the very respected Oscar Winning Director Danis Tanović. In a span of less than a decade, Guneet has to her credit over a dozen feature films as a producer namely: Say Salaam India Dasvidaniya That Girl in Yellow Boots Shaitan Trishna Michael Peddlers Shahid Aiyyaa The Congress Gangs of Wasseypur The Lunchbox She has also produced award-winning and studio collaborating short films like: Kavi Moi Marjaani Hidden Cricket Geek Out Sujata Shor Chai Forthcoming feature films slate: Haraamkhor Tigers Zubaan Vakratunda Mahakaya Monsoon Shootout CINEMORPHIC presents A SIKHYA ENTERTAINMENT and CINEMORPHIC Production In association with ASAP FILMS A DANIS Tanović FILM TIGERS MAIN CAST Ayan Emraan Hashmi Zainab Geetanjali Alex Danny Huston Nadeem Khalid Abdalla Bilal Adil Hussain Faiz Satyadeep Misra Maggie Maryam D Abo Michael Heino Ferch Frank Sam Reid Mustafa Vinod Nagpal Ayan s Mother Supriya Pathak Producers Prashita Chaudhary, Kshitij Chaudhary, Guneet Monga, Anurag Kashyap, Andy Paterson, Cat Villiers, Cedomir Kolar and Marc Baschet Executive Producers Achin Jain, Karen Tenkhoff, Michael Weber, Praveen Hashmi Associate Producer Rashmi Kohli Produced by Cinemorphic Pvt Ltd (India) and Sikhya Entertainment Pvt Ltd (India) in co-production with ASAP Films (France) MAIN CREW Director Danis Tanović Screenplay Danis Tanović, Andy Paterson Music Composer Pritam Director of Photography Erol Zubcevic Editor Prerna Saigal Sound Designer Anthony B. J. Ruban Costume Designer Niharika Khan Production Designer Rachna Rastogi, K.K. Murlidharan Casting Seher Latif, CSA Line Producer Vishal Bajaj Make Up Serina Tixeira Cinemorphic Pvt. Ltd.

15 INTERNATIONAL PRESS RICHARD LORMAND FILM PRESS PLUS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: SEBASTIáN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: TECHNICAL DETAILS Year of production: 2014 Nationality of production: India / France / UK Length: 90 minutes Sound: Dolby 5.1 Colour Original language: English, Urdu Available subtitles: English Screening ratio: 2.35:1 WORLD SALES THE MATCH FACTORY Balthasarstrasse / Cologne / Germany Tel / Fax / info@matchfactory.de Contact in Toronto Michael Weber, Brigitte Suárez, Thania Dimitrakopoulou Contact in San Sebastián Michael Weber, Brigitte Suárez