''The Vaccine War'' is a 2023 Indian

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 ...

-language

medical Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practic ...

docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event". Docudramas typic ...

film directed by

Vivek Agnihotri Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri (born 10 November 1973) is an Indian film director, film producer, screenwriter and author who works in Hindi cinema. , he is a member of the board of India's Central Board of Film Certification and a cultural represen ...

and produced by

Pallavi Joshi Pallavi Joshi (born 4 April 1969) is an Indian actress, writer, and film producer who works primarily in Hindi films and television. In a career spanning across films and television, Joshi is the recipient of such accolades as two National Film ...

. It tells about the development of

Covaxin Covaxin (codenamed as BBV152) is a whole inactivated virus-based COVID-19 vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research - National Institute of Virology. As of October 2021, 110.6 million ...

during the

COVID-19 pandemic in India The COVID-19 pandemic in India is a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). As of , according to Indian government figures, India has the second-highest n ...

, shedding light on the efforts of

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts Scientific method, scientific research to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, ...

s involved in its creation. It is based on the book "Going Viral" by Prof

Balram Bhargava Balram Bhargava is an Indian physician scientist, cardiologist, medical educationist, and innovator. He is currently serving as the Chief of Cardiothoracic Centre, AIIMS. He is the former Director General at the Indian Council of Medical Researc ...

Indian Council of Medical Research The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the apex body in India for the formulation, coordination and promotion of biomedical research, is one of the oldest and largest medical research bodies in the world. The ICMR is funded by the Gove ...

. The film features

Nana Patekar Vishwanath Patekar (born 1 January 1951), better known as Nana Patekar, is an Indian actor, screenwriter, film maker, and a former Indian Territorial Army officer, mainly working in Hindi and Marathi cinema. He is regarded as one of the finest a ...

Raima Sen Raima Sen (born Raima Dev Varma on 7 November 1979) is an Indian actress who is known for her work in the Hindi and Bengali films. Early life Raima Sen was born on 7 November 1979 in Bombay (now Mumbai) to Moon Moon Sen and Bharat Dev Varma a ...

, Anupam Kher,

Girija Oak Girija Oak is an Indian actress known for her performances in ''Taare Zameen Par'' and ''Shor in the City''. Career Oak made her debut on the big screen at the age of 15. She acted in Marathi movies including ''Goshta Choti Dongraevadhi'', ''G ...

Nivedita Bhattacharya Nivedita Bhattacharya (born 21 July 1970) is an Indian actress. She was born in Lucknow. She is an actress who has acted on television and in films. Filmography * ''Kya Kehna'' (2000) - Preity Zinta's sister-in-law * '' Darr @ the Mall'' (2 ...

, Sapthami Gowda, and

Mohan Kapur Mohan Kapur (born 27 October 1965) is an Indian actor, voice artist and television host who works predominantly in Hindi films and television. Career Mohan is famous for being the first South Asian host of the first South Asian original progra ...

. ''The Vaccine War'' was theatrically released on 28 September 2023 to mixed reviews from critics. It was featured at the 54th IFFI Indian panorama section where it received standing ovation.

Plot

Scientists at the Indian biomedical lab roll out an indigenous vaccine at the height of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

in the race against time. The Director General of

ICMR The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the apex body in India for the formulation, coordination and promotion of biomedical research, is one of the oldest and largest medical research bodies in the world. The ICMR is funded by the Gove ...

Dr.

spearheads the vaccine development project. A high level expert committee is set-up by the

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is an Indian government ministry charged with health policy in India. It is also responsible for all government programs relating to family planning in India. The Minister of Health and Family Welfare ...

, ICMR, and

Bharat Biotech Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) is an Indian multinational biotechnology company headquartered in the city of Hyderabad, India engaged in the drug discovery, drug development, manufacture of vaccines, bio-therapeutics, pharmaceuti ...

. A scientific team of bioengineers led by Dr. Priya Abraham, Director of

National Institute of Virology The National Institute of Virology in Pune, India is an Indian virology research institute and part of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). It was previously known as 'Virus Research Centre' and was founded in collaboration with the ...

, consists of Virologists Dr. Sreelekshmy Mohandas, Dr. Nivedita Gupta, and Dr. Pragya Yadav; Epidemiologists and Infectious Disease Scientists Dr. Rajni Kant Srivastava, Dr. Raman Gangakhedkar, Dr. Samiran Panda, Dr. Varsha Potdar and Dr. Enna Dogra Gupta. The SARS-CoV-2 strain (NIV-2020-770) used in developing the BBV152 vaccine is retrieved from tourists who arrive in

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

, India. The scientific team sequences the ‘Vero CCL-81’ cells and the genome sequence is deposited in the GISAID database. The team then reports the development of an inactivated whole-virion SARS-CoV-2 vaccine BBV152, which elicits a neutralizing antibody response in animal studies, and phase I clinical trial against hCoV-19/India/2020770.

Cast

as Dr. Balram Bhargava,

Director-General A director general or director-general (plural: ''directors general'', ''directors-general'', ''director generals'' or ''director-generals'' ) or general director is a senior executive officer, often the chief executive officer, within a government ...

as Dr. Priya Abraham,

Director Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty Music * Director (band), an Irish rock band * ''Di ...

as Rohini Singh Dhulia, Science Editor at

The Daily Wire ''The Daily Wire'' is an American conservative news website and media company founded in 2015 by political commentator Ben Shapiro and film director Jeremy Boreing. The company is a major publisher on Facebook, and produces podcasts such as ' ...

* Sapthami Gowda as Dr. Sreelekshmy Mohandas,

Scientist A scientist is a person who conducts Scientific method, scientific research to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, ...

NIV Niv may refer to: * Niv, a personal name; for people with the name, see * Niv Art Movies, a film production company of India * Niv Art Centre, in New Delhi, India NIV may refer to: * The New International Version, a translation of the Bible into E ...

* Anupam Kher as Cabinet Secretary *

as Dr. Nivedita Gupta, Head of

Virology Virology is the Scientific method, scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host (biology), ...

Dept. at

as Dr. Pragya Yadav,

as Dr. Raman Gangakhedkar, Head and

Epidemiology Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidenc ...

and

Communicable Disease An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable dise ...

Division at

* Anchal Dwivedi as Dr. Enna Dogra Gupta,

* Arvind Paswan as Dr. Rajni Kant Srivastava Sr. Deputy Director-General of

* Mayukh as Dr. Samiran Panda, Head and

and

Division at

(Also

- NARI) * Deepjyoti Das as Editor * Vrinda Kher as Dr. Varsha Potdar,

and Sr.

Research Officer A research assistant (RA) is a researcher employed, often on a temporary contract, by a university, a research institute or a privately held organization, for the purpose of assisting in academic or private research. Research assistants are not in ...

* Suhita Thatte as House help of Rohini Singh Dhulia * Benny Brown as Security Guard Bahadur * Manas Gupta as Gardener's Son * Divya Seth as Dr. Bhargava's wife * Reuben Israel as Dr. Priya Abraham's husband * Arjun Dwivedi as Dr. Sanjay Yadav * Asheesh Kapur as Vikas Gupta * Aarav Shukla as Dr. Pragya Yadav's son * Kavya Goel as Dr. Pragya Yadav's daughter * Rudra Choudhary as Dr. Nivedita Gupta's son * Nitant Trivedi as Dr. Nivedita Gupta's son * Dheeraj Sharma as Professor Vijay Raghavan

Production

The film was announced in November 2022, last schedule started in June 2023 and the shoot wrapped up on 13 August 2023.

Release

Theatrical

The theatrical release date was announced via teaser on the 77th

Independence Day of India Independence Day is celebrated annually on 15 August as a public holiday in India commemorating the nation's independence from the United Kingdom on 15 August 1947, the day when the provisions of the Indian Independence Act, which trans ...

. The film will be released on 28 September 2023.' Earlier it was set to be released on 15 August 2023 and then 24 October 2023''.'' It is planned to be released in eleven Indian languages' including

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nati ...

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

Punjabi Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan * Punjabi language * Punjabi people * Punjabi dialects and languages Punjabi may also refer to: * Punjabi (horse), a British Th ...

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

and

Bhojpuri Bhojpuri (;Bhojpuri entry, Oxford Dictionaries
, Oxford U ...

.'''' The official trailer was released on 12 September 2023. ''The Vaccine War'' was marketed as "India's first bio-science film". The film was theatrically released on 28 September 2023. The films digital streaming rights was sold to

Disney+ Hotstar The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

for 35 crore. The film was premiered on the platform on 24 November 2023.

Music

The music of the film is composed by

Rohit Sharma Rohit Gurunath Sharma (born 30 April 1987) is an Indian international cricketer and the current captain of the Indian cricket team. Widely considered as one of the best opening batter of all time, he plays as a right-handed batsman for Mumbai ...

Vanraj Bhatia Vanraj Bhatia (Hindi: वनराज भाटिया ; 31 May 1927 – 7 May 2021) was an Indian composer best known for his work in Indian New Wave cinema. He was also one of the leading composers of Western classical music in India. Bha ...

Swapnil Bandodkar Swapnil Bandodkar is a Marathi playback singer from India, popular for playback singing Marathi film and television world. He learnt music from Kunda Vaishampayan, Vasantrao Kulkarni and Suresh Wadkar Career Born in a Goan family in Mumbai. H ...

and Shryea Kaul while lyrics written by

Vasant Dev Vasant Deo (1929-1996) was an Indian writer, lyricist and screenwriter and a Hindi academic at Parle College in Mumbai. He worked in Hindi parallel cinema through the 1980s, working with directors like Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani and Mahesh ...

and Shryea Kaul.

Reception

Critical reception

''The Vaccine War'' garnered mixed reviews from the critics. Mudit Bhatnagar of

Times Now Times Now is an English news channel in India owned and operated by The Times Group. The channel launched on 23 January 2006 in partnership with Reuters. It is a pay television throughout India. Until 2016, it was India's most popular and the m ...

rating it 3.5/5, praising its blend of science and emotion. Reviewing the film, Shalini Langer of ''

The Indian Express ''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932. It is published in Mumbai by the Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, the group was split betw ...

'' rated the film with 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Vivek Agnihotri's devotion to his subject – with obviously the government's full cooperation and access – veers the film often towards the look and feel of a public service broadcast". Zinia Bandyopadhyay of ''

India Today ''India Today'' is a weekly Indian English-language news magazine published by Living Media India Limited. It is the most widely circulated magazine in India, with a readership of close to 8 million. In 2014, ''India Today'' launched a new onl ...

'' rated the film with 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "watching the film might give the impression that the entire industry made it their mission to undermine the vaccine and the dedicated scientists behind it." Renuka Vyavahare of ''

The Times of India ''The Times of India'', also known by its abbreviation ''TOI'', is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest ...

'' rated the film with 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Nana Patekar is outstanding but the film reduces itself to being a government mouthpiece parading as a medical drama." Venkat Arikatla of ''Greatandhra'' gave a rating of 1.5 out of 5, calling it an overdose of propagandist torture. He stated, what the film does is malign those journalists who rightly questioned the ruling party's grand claims of being capable of producing the vaccine.

Box office

On its opening day, ''The Vaccine War'' collected a total India net of . ''The Vaccine War'' has grossed in India, with a further in overseas, for a worldwide total of .

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Vaccine War 2023 films Films about the COVID-19 pandemic Films directed by Vivek Agnihotri Indian disaster films Fiction about medicine and health Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in fiction Indian Council of Medical Research in fiction Films about scientists Films set in 2021 Fiction about biomedical engineering Experimental medical treatments in fiction Films about infectious diseases Fiction about genetic engineering Films about social media Biopunk films Films about viral outbreaks Hospitals in fiction Films about conspiracy theories Medical-themed films Films shot in Maharashtra Films shot in Pune Indian thriller films Indian films based on actual events Films set in Delhi Films set in India Indian docudrama films Films based on non-fiction books