Hotel Mumbai

The press conference for this film will be held on September 8. Please visit the event page for the livestream link.

Sometimes events designed to tear us apart can be the very ones that bring us together. Featuring stunning performances from Academy Award nominee Dev Patel and Golden Globe nominee Armie Hammer, this searing, vivid dramatization of the Mumbai attacks hurls us into the chaos that terrorized India's most populous city for four days in 2008. A film that does not hold back in its depiction of violence, Hotel Mumbai also highlights ordinary people from all walks of life whose responses to this nightmarish scenario reveal the courage and resilience that unite us when we need it most.

Helmed by Australian director Anthony Maras, the film focuses on the events that transpired at the opulent Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, targeted by Lashkar-e-Taiba militants as an emblem of Indian prosperity and modernity. The city erupts, and explosions render much of the hotel a death trap. Gunmen — uneducated, impoverished young men led by charismatic extremists — begin hunting down staff and clients. People in the thick of the maelstrom, people from a wide range of class, culture, and creed must find a way to organize and mobilize in the face of constant peril.

We live in an age that seems always to be emphasizing our differences. By conjuring this traumatic moment in recent history, Hotel Mumbai reminds us that enduring such situations requires people to truly see each other not as pawns straddling either side of a dividing wall but, rather, as fellow human beings whose best chance is grounded in interdependence. When great danger comes, we are all in this together.

JANE SCHOETTLE