Archie Panjabi

The below-the-folders working on A Mighty Heart, the Daniel Pearl film with Anj Leena Jholi, are mighty impressive. This isn’t your ordinary glossy celeb flick.

Asra Nomani

Archie Panjabi is playing Asra Nomani, a former WSJ Pakistan correspondent who later led a minor insurrection by encouraging female imams to lead mosque prayers. Nomani, who wrote Standing Alone in Mecca, is a young member of SAJA, and it’s a bit odd seeing someone you might have met personally, someone still living, being portrayed on screen. If I ever meet an untimely death, please have George Clooney play me, physical likeness be damned

All their scenes were shot with a single, hand-held camera connected to laptops which would screen the shot for any technical defect and communicate with [the director] on the walkie-talkie. “A mini-monitor was always strapped to his waist. During filming, he would look into it and guide the cinematographer by pulling his shirt from behind to get the right moving shot…” [Link]

Director Michael Winterbottom also did the Pakistani Brit documentary The Road to Guantánamo and the shaggy, baggy mockumentary Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story. He did not do Gia or Tomb Raider. This bodes well. Next he’s lightening up with a fluffy picture called Murder in Samarkand:

… based upon the memoirs of Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan. Murray, portrayed by Steve Coogan… was fired in 2004 after drawing attention to human rights abuses and torture in Uzbekistan. [Link]

Uzbek torture is said to include boiling political dissidents alive.

Daniel Pearl and Nomani, Karachi, ‘02

This guy must be the life of the party.

A few months ago I met a Los Angelino named Zachary Coffin in Bombay, a frenetic Sepia Mutiny and desi film fan working on a Bhopal disaster documentary. Zach also landed a part in this flick (nice job, dude).

Related posts: Mumbarazzi, ‘Yasmin’ in Queens, Panjabi having a very ‘Good Year’, The spy who loved me