hotel mumbai
On November 26, 2008, a multi-pronged attack of unfathomable destruction and carnage seized the city of Mumbai, India over three days. Amidst the chaos, unarmed common people of all faiths and races banded together to survive the terrorist onslaught.
HOTEL MUMBAI is one such story of how a courageous staff protected their guests and each other and inspired the world. Director Anthony Maras discussed the responsibilities of telling this true tale, and its plea for peace.
Dig it!
HOTEL MUMBAI
Anthony Maras
The Lady Miz Diva: You came from a background of short films. What was it about the story of the Mumbai terror attacks that made you want to centre your first feature around them?
Anthony Maras: It really came about after watching this documentary called SURVIVING MUMBAI. Prior to having seen the documentary, I didn’t know too much about the Mumbai attacks. I knew as much as most other people; which was seeing a bunch of anguished faces on television, burning buildings, and some of the things that we are “used to seeing” during these terrorist attacks.
However, seeing the documentary opened up a different angle to the attacks and to people’s responses to them, and that was the human angle, the human story. Which is to say, because the attacks took place over a sustained period -- it was a three day period -- it wasn’t like other terror attacks, where there might be a bomb blast, or shooting, and it’s jarring, and it’s violent, and it’s over, and you’re dealing with the aftermath. In the case of the Mumbai attacks, over 68 hours meant that the human response quite different; meaning that because Mumbai is such a huge city, and because it took time for the police to be able to neutralise the situation, a lot of people caught up in the attacks had to rely on themselves and one another to get through this ordeal.
And particularly what you saw at the Taj Hotel, was a situation where you had people from all different walks of life, from many different religions; Hindus, Christians, Muslims, people from vastly different socioeconomic backgrounds. You saw all these people forced to come together, and protect one another, and be there for one another to get through what was quite a horrific ordeal. The example that was set by the guests and particularly the staff of the Taj Hotel really inspired me to tell the story.
In the case of the staff members of the Taj, you had people who had families of their own, who had husbands and wives and children outside of their work, and despite that, they chose to remain to protect one another, and to protect their guests. In some cases, you had staff members who had successfully evacuated people from the building, who then, unbelievably, chose to come back in to go in and help their fellow people. I kept asking myself, as surely you would, ‘What would I do in that situation?’ and that was the impetus that really began the project that was HOTEL MUMBAI.
So, it started with viewing the documentary, then my cowriter,John Collee, and I, watched dozens of hours of interview footage -- the unedited footage that didn’t make it into the documentary, and we were just sort of overwhelmed by these immensely human and heroic stories of people coming together. These are heroes who never fired a gun, they never threw a punch, and the heroism came through their ability to be there for one another, to keep calm, and to quite selflessly do things, like when escape attempts were made.
You had people like Daniela Federici, who was an Australian photographer caught up in the attacks; we’d interviewed her. She and her friends had been trying desperately to keep quiet, and as the building was burning, they had to get out, it was only when a grenade had gone off and cracked one of the windows that they were able to then get a champagne bucket and crack the window. Then they had to wait patiently and lower one another out of the window with curtains instead of ropes.
You had other instances, like the kitchen staff that was headed by Hemant Oberoi, the head chef, who was stuffing pots and pans and baking trays down their shirts to act as makeshift bulletproof vests, to protect one another and their guests as they were making these escape attempts.
Really, more than anything, these barriers that we’re often told in media and other places that usually divide us, evaporated at the Taj, and through the Mumbai attacks, and people came together to survive.
LMD: How did you go about researching the story? Did you interact with the actual survivors and witnesses?
AM: Over the course of about 12 months, we conducted our sort of research -- it was ongoing, as we were making the film, because as you make it, more and more stuff feeds in -- but it started with a friend of mine who is a lawyer in Australia, Brian Hayes, he’s since become a co-producer on the film. Brian was born in India, later educated as a lawyer in England, but ended up in Australia acting as a lawyer. In his other life, he runs trade missions between Australia and India; cultural exchange programs, and also is a patron of various charities. I’d gone to Brian very early on, to say, “We’re looking to do this film about the Mumbai attacks, and I want to get as much information as possible.”
Specifically, I was after the court case transcripts of Mohammed Kasab, who was the sole surviving terrorist. These documents are publicly available, but in Australia, you can get the judgments, but to get the entire transcript can be difficult. So, Brian helped to source and introduced us to both the prosecutor, the defense counsel, and he also knew the judge in the case, but it was the defense counsel that directed us to where we could find the court case transcripts, and within them was thousands of pages of the confession of the gunmen, together with a lot of other circumstantial evidence, including these satellite phone calls that were intercepted by the Indian security services. These were calls that were made between the gunmen and their handlers back in Pakistan, and that give a blow-by-blow account of what they were saying to one another, and what they were being told by their handlers, and some of that interaction made its way into the film.
So, before we went out and did any interviews, John Collee and I went through all of this interview material that the original documentary makers had made. We went through all the transcripts, we had a very close working knowledge of the details of the attack, but then we spent 18 months going in, interviewing real-life survivors.
So, we went to India; we spent over a month staying at the Taj hotel, and between India, Australia, and America, and in person we interviewed people, and then various people by phone, and by Skype video chats. We interviewed over 40 people to get their perspectives on what they had endured, and what they had gone through. These were predominantly focused on people who were at the Taj hotel, we also interviewed others who were caught up in other parts of the attack.
I was also family friends with someone in Australia who had gone to Mumbai to get married on that weekend. They had gone to the Taj on the night that the attacks happened. They left the Taj minutes before the attacks happened, because they said, “We’re going to go to a fancy place for the wedding, let’s go to somewhere more casual,” so they decided to go to the Leopold Café, and that was another attack site. So, from the time they left the Taj, on their way to the Leopold, that’s when those attacks happened. So, they escaped both of those, and then they went across town to a friend’s restaurant to go and hide out, and they heard more gunshots, and the restaurant happened to be at the Cama Hospital, which was where the gunmen had gone to attack victims that they hadn’t got the first time. So, these people narrowly escaped that.
And I’m not counting those within the 40, the other people interviewed included the two police officers made their way into the CCTV, and obviously, Hemant Oberoi, and many other people, within the Taj/Oberoi trident of hotels and other places around.
LMD: When you are dealing with a recent tragedy, particularly one where those involved can respond to what you’ve presented onscreen, does that affect your perspective or approach as a filmmaker?
AM: Of course. There’s a huge sense of responsibility that you have to do justice to their stories. These were very difficult times, and so, for us, it was very much a process of listening, not making any judgments, and spending a lot of time just trying to absorb what had happened, and it was from that the story and the script came out of.
HOTEL MUMBAI is one such story of how a courageous staff protected their guests and each other and inspired the world. Director Anthony Maras discussed the responsibilities of telling this true tale, and its plea for peace.
Dig it!
HOTEL MUMBAI
Anthony Maras
The Lady Miz Diva: You came from a background of short films. What was it about the story of the Mumbai terror attacks that made you want to centre your first feature around them?
Anthony Maras: It really came about after watching this documentary called SURVIVING MUMBAI. Prior to having seen the documentary, I didn’t know too much about the Mumbai attacks. I knew as much as most other people; which was seeing a bunch of anguished faces on television, burning buildings, and some of the things that we are “used to seeing” during these terrorist attacks.
However, seeing the documentary opened up a different angle to the attacks and to people’s responses to them, and that was the human angle, the human story. Which is to say, because the attacks took place over a sustained period -- it was a three day period -- it wasn’t like other terror attacks, where there might be a bomb blast, or shooting, and it’s jarring, and it’s violent, and it’s over, and you’re dealing with the aftermath. In the case of the Mumbai attacks, over 68 hours meant that the human response quite different; meaning that because Mumbai is such a huge city, and because it took time for the police to be able to neutralise the situation, a lot of people caught up in the attacks had to rely on themselves and one another to get through this ordeal.
And particularly what you saw at the Taj Hotel, was a situation where you had people from all different walks of life, from many different religions; Hindus, Christians, Muslims, people from vastly different socioeconomic backgrounds. You saw all these people forced to come together, and protect one another, and be there for one another to get through what was quite a horrific ordeal. The example that was set by the guests and particularly the staff of the Taj Hotel really inspired me to tell the story.
In the case of the staff members of the Taj, you had people who had families of their own, who had husbands and wives and children outside of their work, and despite that, they chose to remain to protect one another, and to protect their guests. In some cases, you had staff members who had successfully evacuated people from the building, who then, unbelievably, chose to come back in to go in and help their fellow people. I kept asking myself, as surely you would, ‘What would I do in that situation?’ and that was the impetus that really began the project that was HOTEL MUMBAI.
So, it started with viewing the documentary, then my cowriter,John Collee, and I, watched dozens of hours of interview footage -- the unedited footage that didn’t make it into the documentary, and we were just sort of overwhelmed by these immensely human and heroic stories of people coming together. These are heroes who never fired a gun, they never threw a punch, and the heroism came through their ability to be there for one another, to keep calm, and to quite selflessly do things, like when escape attempts were made.
You had people like Daniela Federici, who was an Australian photographer caught up in the attacks; we’d interviewed her. She and her friends had been trying desperately to keep quiet, and as the building was burning, they had to get out, it was only when a grenade had gone off and cracked one of the windows that they were able to then get a champagne bucket and crack the window. Then they had to wait patiently and lower one another out of the window with curtains instead of ropes.
You had other instances, like the kitchen staff that was headed by Hemant Oberoi, the head chef, who was stuffing pots and pans and baking trays down their shirts to act as makeshift bulletproof vests, to protect one another and their guests as they were making these escape attempts.
Really, more than anything, these barriers that we’re often told in media and other places that usually divide us, evaporated at the Taj, and through the Mumbai attacks, and people came together to survive.
LMD: How did you go about researching the story? Did you interact with the actual survivors and witnesses?
AM: Over the course of about 12 months, we conducted our sort of research -- it was ongoing, as we were making the film, because as you make it, more and more stuff feeds in -- but it started with a friend of mine who is a lawyer in Australia, Brian Hayes, he’s since become a co-producer on the film. Brian was born in India, later educated as a lawyer in England, but ended up in Australia acting as a lawyer. In his other life, he runs trade missions between Australia and India; cultural exchange programs, and also is a patron of various charities. I’d gone to Brian very early on, to say, “We’re looking to do this film about the Mumbai attacks, and I want to get as much information as possible.”
Specifically, I was after the court case transcripts of Mohammed Kasab, who was the sole surviving terrorist. These documents are publicly available, but in Australia, you can get the judgments, but to get the entire transcript can be difficult. So, Brian helped to source and introduced us to both the prosecutor, the defense counsel, and he also knew the judge in the case, but it was the defense counsel that directed us to where we could find the court case transcripts, and within them was thousands of pages of the confession of the gunmen, together with a lot of other circumstantial evidence, including these satellite phone calls that were intercepted by the Indian security services. These were calls that were made between the gunmen and their handlers back in Pakistan, and that give a blow-by-blow account of what they were saying to one another, and what they were being told by their handlers, and some of that interaction made its way into the film.
So, before we went out and did any interviews, John Collee and I went through all of this interview material that the original documentary makers had made. We went through all the transcripts, we had a very close working knowledge of the details of the attack, but then we spent 18 months going in, interviewing real-life survivors.
So, we went to India; we spent over a month staying at the Taj hotel, and between India, Australia, and America, and in person we interviewed people, and then various people by phone, and by Skype video chats. We interviewed over 40 people to get their perspectives on what they had endured, and what they had gone through. These were predominantly focused on people who were at the Taj hotel, we also interviewed others who were caught up in other parts of the attack.
I was also family friends with someone in Australia who had gone to Mumbai to get married on that weekend. They had gone to the Taj on the night that the attacks happened. They left the Taj minutes before the attacks happened, because they said, “We’re going to go to a fancy place for the wedding, let’s go to somewhere more casual,” so they decided to go to the Leopold Café, and that was another attack site. So, from the time they left the Taj, on their way to the Leopold, that’s when those attacks happened. So, they escaped both of those, and then they went across town to a friend’s restaurant to go and hide out, and they heard more gunshots, and the restaurant happened to be at the Cama Hospital, which was where the gunmen had gone to attack victims that they hadn’t got the first time. So, these people narrowly escaped that.
And I’m not counting those within the 40, the other people interviewed included the two police officers made their way into the CCTV, and obviously, Hemant Oberoi, and many other people, within the Taj/Oberoi trident of hotels and other places around.
LMD: When you are dealing with a recent tragedy, particularly one where those involved can respond to what you’ve presented onscreen, does that affect your perspective or approach as a filmmaker?
AM: Of course. There’s a huge sense of responsibility that you have to do justice to their stories. These were very difficult times, and so, for us, it was very much a process of listening, not making any judgments, and spending a lot of time just trying to absorb what had happened, and it was from that the story and the script came out of.