Today’s top news for the Oscar nominee To kill the tiger. Actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas joins the award-winning documentary as executive producer, alongside Dev Patel, Mindy Kaling, and other bold names. This news comes as Netflix signs a deal to release the film globally on its platform soon.
“Priyanka has been a steadfast advocate for the film since its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022, captivated by its poignant narrative that depicts a courageous father’s struggle within the judicial system to secure justice for his daughter,” a press release said.
Ranjit’s daughter in the movie “To Kill a Tiger”
National Film Board of Canada/Everett Collection/Notice Pictures
To kill the tiger, directed by Nisha Pahuja, has won twenty awards around the world, including Best Documentary at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, the Amplifying Voices Award at TIFF, and Best Feature Documentary at the Canadian Screen Awards. Pahuja received the 2023 Award of Excellence in Documentary Film from the Directors Guild of Canada. It managed to get shortlisted for the Academy Awards and then received a nomination despite not being distributed in the United States. The Netflix deal will finally change that.
Pahuja spent eight years working on the film, which centers on Ranjit, a poor farmer whose 13-year-old daughter Kiran becomes the victim of a brutal sexual assault. Ranjit and his wife, Giganti, rejected the pressure exerted by his village to drop the charges against the three young men accused of the attack. The film is set in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand (where Priyanka Chopra Jonas was born).
Ranjit (left) and Gigante (right) in the movie “To Kill a Tiger”
Courtesy of NFB and Photo Notice
To kill the tigerthe statement captioned, “serves as a testament to the boundless love and unyielding determination of a devoted father for his dear daughter.”
Along with Chopra, Patel and Kaling, fellow executive producers are Dr. Atul Gawande, a surgeon and best-selling author, Canadian poet Rupi Kaur, and writer and producer Andy Cohen (Beijing Spring), Anita Lee, Andrew Dragoumis, Shivani Rawat, Mona Sinha (Equality Now), Mala Gaonkar (Surjo Foundation), Regina Scally, Anita Bhatia, Neeraj Bhatia, Deepa Mehta and others.
This is the first Oscar nomination for Pahuja, the Toronto-based filmmaker who was born in India and raised in Canada. Her credits include the 2014 Emmy Award-nominated documentary The world is before herdocuseries Diamond Road (2007), and a 2002 documentary Bollywood Bound.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai and director Nisha Pahuja attend a special screening of “To Kill A Tiger” in London on February 20, 2024.
Dave Bennett/Getty Images for notice images
Pahuja was attending the Sundance Film Festival in Utah when the Oscar nominations were announced on January 23. “I couldn’t believe it,” the director told Deadline that morning. “It’s very surreal.”
As Deadline reported in our newly published Oscar-themed magazine, Ranjit and his family, as well as Pahuja and her film crew, faced death threats while making the documentary. At one point, villagers angry at the family’s refusal to drop the case attacked Ranjit’s house and threatened to set it on fire while the family and directors were inside. The dangerous conditions forced Pahuja to consider stopping production.
“Our main concern was family and how they feel, and what do they want us to do? Do they want us to keep shooting? Should we stop? They didn’t,” Pahuja told Deadline. “They wanted us to keep shooting… They understood.” “That the camera gave them some kind of protection. They felt that because we were filming, no one would ever do anything. They would think twice.”
My producer To kill the tiger Includes Pahuja of Notification Pictures Inc., Cornelia Principe and David Oppenheim of the National Council of Canada.