NEWS: Zach Coffin, producer plans Bhopal film with the "honey" of entertainment
Frederick Noronha (FN)
From Frederick Noronha
PANAJI (Goa), Dec 9: Bhopal marries the big screen, and US producer
Zachary "Zack" Coffin believes he can wrap "reality and the truth" about the
world's worst-ever industrial disaster with the honey of entertainment.
Coffin -- who has a strange mix of business and art training -- has just
announced plans to work on a major motion picture about the 1984 Union
Carbide disaster in Bhopal, believed to be the worst industrial disaster in
the world.
"This is a story that needs to get across to a housewife in Houston, Texas,
whose husband lost his job while working for Enron. It's not just about the
gas tragedy and death, but about people getting very angry (over things in
their lives they have no control over)," Coffin told IANS in an exclusive
interview.
Speaking to this news service during the 35th International Film Festival of
India, held for the first time in Goa, the 34-year-old subject-matter expert
on corporate transparency, who has an MFA degree in film production, says
his interestes in both these subjects together with being a "friend of
India" propelled him to the subject.
"I had never planned it this way. Fate has guided my life," he said.
Coffin says Bhopal's disaster could be seen as the "first great case of
globalisation (of a negative kind)".
He is clear about the challenge of making a 'cross-over' film, which appeals
to audiences in the Western world, though with a subject based in India.
For someone sitting in the heart of the US, the story of a gas disaster
"affecting dark-skinned people, 12,000 miles apart" doesn't make sense, he
said. "But when they see (former Union Carbide Corporation chairperson)
Warren Anderson, they can identify with him (as another corporate chief
evading responsibilities)," he said.
"Zack" Coffin sees Bhopal as a case of "one human failure after another".
Says he: "Americans, Indians all contributed to it." Besides the corporate
headquarters, there was the local office, and also the a section of the
local community that said "we want the jobs".
Asked about his 'other' background, Coffin argues that "corporate
transparency pays".
In his view, both Hollywood and Bollywood tend to be "escapist" in their
diverse ways. "In Bollywood, it could could be song, dance and a visit to
the Alps. In Hollywood, it's gadgets, hi-tech, violence, and a different
degree of sex," he added.
But the planned film isn't going to be one giving the "hard facts of life".
Said Coffin: "People like to get entertained. In order to get across, we're
willing to do that."
Earlier this month, the team making this fiction feature film announced that
it would be "a murder mystery inspired by true events", one that is set
mostly in present day America, with flashbacks to Bhopal.
It's the story of a young woman's search for her father, a plant manager on
duty the night of the disaster. Former Miss World Ms. Aishwarya Rai plays
the lead role, as Jasmine Singh, an Indian-American debutante born in Bhopal
but raised in Beverly Hills.
Coffin sees a big challenge in Indian films successfully re-inventing
themselves in a way that they become genuinely 'cross over' and appeal to
audiences in dominant Western markets too.
"Indian film has the opportunity to be universal, but gets weighted down in
indulging certain formats. For instance, the need to keep five songs in each
film," he added, suggesting that perhaps the large domestic market had not
made film-makers to effectively break into more markets abroad.
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