''Bandhak'' is a South Asian American film directed by

Hyder Bilgrami Hyder Bilgrami is an Indian film director. After graduation with a degree in Commerce from Nizam College, he began acting, directing and producing plays in Hyderabad, India. He worked with the Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may r ...

and produced by Ramzan Lakhani. It explores the theme of racism against South Asians in the United States in the aftermath of the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

in 2001 through the story of Baldev Singh, an Indian immigrant in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

who, facing harassment in his workplace, takes his boss hostage with a toy gun.

Critical response

''Bandhak'' received media coverage in both the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

; it was first screened at a California film festival on September 11, 2004, and was brought to India by the Indo-American Art Council. A press release from the distributor Digimax Studio describes it as the first

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

film in the United States. One New Jersey film critic likened it to a South Asian version of ''

Do The Right Thing ''Do the Right Thing'' is a 1989 American comedy-drama film produced, written, and directed by Spike Lee. It stars Lee, Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Nunn, John Turturro, and Samuel L. Jackson, a ...

''. Producer Ramzan Lakhani described his motivation behind the film in an interview with a local

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

newspaper, stating that while second generation South Asian youth were producing many films in the United States, he hoped to target the immigrant first generation, and hence tried to tailor the film to Indian sensibilities, including

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

-style dance numbers and the use of Hindi.

Credits

Cast

* Farokh Daruwala * Murtuza Sabir * Daman Arora * Manoj Shinde * Meenu Mangal * Ramzan Lakhani

Director

Producer

* Ramzan Lakhani

Music

* Shyam-Das * Nicholas Noor

References

External links

* * 2003 films Films based on the September 11 attacks 2000s Hindi-language films Films about race and ethnicity Films set in the United States {{2000s-Hindi-film-stub