Omertà (2018)

Anecdotes

Omerta is a 2017 Indian biographical crime drama film directed by Hansal Mehta and stars Rajkumar Rao in the role of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, British terrorist of Pakistani descent. The film explores the 1994 kidnappings of Westerners in India for which Omar was arrested and served time in prison and the plotting of murder of Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.

Production

The story of Omerta was suggested to director Hansal Mehta by actor Mukul Dev in 2005, who marks his debut as a writer. Mehta said that at the time when Dev told him the story, the internet was "really slow". So he had to buy books, material from the archives and magazines for the research. He started developing the script but made Shahid (2012) with Rajkummar Rao instead, as he felt the latter was an "easier film to make".

Mehta stated that his intention behind making Omerta was to explore evil as a "human characteristic". He further said that he wanted to leave the audience with a sense of "awe, disgust, hate, surprise" and to examine the "ramifications of these [terror] events on their lives today." Mehta called the villain of the film, Omar Sheikh, the "hannibal" of terrorism who could be planning how to outwit you even while talking to you."

Mehta further told that the film "exposes state-sponsored terrorism and how it manipulates young minds into believing a sordid interpretation of Jihad." The film was shot in real locations across London and Punjab, Old Delhi, parts of Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh in India, while the scenes of Afghanistan and Pakistan were recreated. Mehta, along with his crew, visited some of the places that Ahmed Sheikh had visited.

To prepare for the role, Rao watched several videos, documentaries and hate speeches of Sheikh repeatedly to "gather a lot of hatred and anger" inside himself. He expressed that he was "disturbed" while shooting the film, because of the character he was playing and called it "easily the toughest character" he has played till date. While filming, the November 2015 Paris attacks took place.

Central Board of Film Certification cleared Omerta with an 'A' certificate, with only two cuts, where the censor board has asked for the national anthem to be removed from an offensive scene and a scene involving full frontal nudity that was showcased to portray the mental condition of the protagonist. There was report that banned scenes were leaked online few days before film’s release.

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