Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; March 20, 2018)

The makers of Rajkummar Rao’s Omertà apparently shelled out a lion’s share of its production cost to purchase original footage of terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh. A stickler for perfection, director Hansal Mehta also procured archival footage of various terrorist attacks that led Sheikh to take up the cause of jihad.

“The film covers various crucial events from world history. I had to buy these videos from France, UK, Bosnia and local news agencies. They were bought in bits and pieces through the years,” says Mehta, who has been giving shape to the upcoming film since 2005. Though the director refuses to put a figure to the cost incurred, sources in the know allege that the estimated amount is between Rs 10 to Rs 15 crore.

With Rao playing the British terrorist of Pakistani descent, the film traces Sheikh plotting the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl. It also touches upon the Kandahar hijack and the 9/11 attacks.

Mehta has used portions of the original footage with the help of VFX. “Details about these attacks are not available on public domain as they are sensitive information. In case of Kandahar, some footage of statements made by important politicians had to be found. We had to buy the footage from European news agencies like BBC London.”