Popular British filmmaker of Sikh origin 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 gone on the floors for eight weeks in Jodhpur. The project marks the first time collaboration of Indian media conglomerate Reliance Entertainment with Britain's Pathé.
Chadha of "Bend It Like Beckham" fame, along with Berges and Moira Buffini, has penned the screenplay of the film, whose principal shooting began 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 Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
Actors like Michael Gambon, Lily Travers, Manish Dayal, Om Puri, Hans Raj Hans and Huma Qureshi have been cast in other roles in the film, whose focus is the Viceroy’s House in Delhi, which was the home of the British rulers of India.
In a statement, 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."
"Viceroy's House" is a Pathé, Reliance Entertainment, BBC Films, Ingenious and BFI presentation of a Bend It Films/Deepak Nayar Production in association with FilmVast and Filmgate Films.
It is executive produced by Pathé’s Cameron McCracken, BBC Films' Christine Langan , Reliance Entertainment’s Shibasish Sarkar and Ingenious Media’s Tim O’Shea, while Natascha Wharton will oversee the project for the BFI.
Pathé will distribute the film in Britain and in France and will handle sales throughout the rest of the world, while Reliance Entertainment will distribute the film in India.