On January 23, 2002, Mariane Pearl’s world changed forever. Her husband Daniel, the South Asia Bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, was researching a story on shoe bomber Richard Reid. The story drew them to Karachi where a go-between had promised access to an elusive source. As Danny left for the meeting, he told Mariane he might be late for dinner. He never returned.
In the face of death, Danny’s spirit of defiance and his unflinching belief in the power of journalism led Mariane to write about his disappearance, the intense effort to find him and his eventual murderer in her memoir A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl. Six months pregnant when the ordeal began, she was carrying a son that Danny hoped to name Adam. She wrote the book to introduce Adam to the father he would never meet. Transcending religion, race and nationality, Mariane’s courageous desire to rise above the bitterness and hatred that continues to plague this post 9/11 world, serves as the purest expression of the joy of life she and Danny shared.
Starring Academy Award® winner Angelina Jolie (Girl, Interrupted) as Mariane Pearl, and Dan Futterman, Oscar®-nominated for his Capote screenplay, as Daniel Pearl, A Mighty Heart is directed by Michael Winterbottom (The Road to Guantanamo, Tristram Shandy) and produced by Brad Pitt and Dede Gardner for Plan B Entertainment (Year of the Dog, THE Departed) and Andrew Eaton for Revolution Films (The Road to Guantanamo). John Orloff (BAND OF BROTHERS) wrote the screenplay.
In addition to Jolie and Futterman, A Mighty Heart stars Irrfan Khan (The Namesake), Tony Award winner Denis O’Hare (“Take Me Out”), Archie Panjabi (Bend It Like Beckham), Will Patton (Remember the Titans), Pakistani television star Adnan Siddiqui (Amer Bail), and Obie Award winner Gary Wilmes (“Red Light Winter”).
The film’s behind-the-scenes artists are all Winterbottom veterans, including director of photography Marcel Zyskind (The Road to Guantanamo), production designer Mark Digby (The Road to Guantanamo), editor Peter Christelis (CODE 46), and costume designer Charlotte Walter (TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK & BULL STORY).
The night Danny disappeared, Mariane kept vigil with Asra Nomani, an old friend and colleague of Danny’s at the WSJ, living in Karachi. Both women were seasoned international journalists with formidable investigative skills, but they were also foreign women in a country that had become increasingly volatile since September 11. By dawn, they knew they were facing a crisis that required strong allies fully briefed on Pakistan’s proliferating terrorist cells, its byzantine bureaucracy and its notorious Inter-Services-Intelligence agency (I.S.I.).
Dozens of local investigators swarmed the house that morning, including a man called Captain, the then head of Pakistan’s brand new counter-terrorism unit. With Asra’s house as headquarters, Captain’s men, along with an American diplomatic security agent, two Journal colleagues and the FBI, dedicated themselves to the search. After five harrowing weeks, amidst escalating media frenzy, they found the kidnappers. Among them was the known militant Omar Saeed Sheikh, aka “Bashir,” the go-between who had offered Danny information relating to the shoe bomber story. Then came the devastating news that Danny had been brutally murdered weeks earlier.
Mariane and Danny believed that by bearing witness to events and allowing all voices to be heard, truthful journalism could bridge communities in conflict. Mariane has remained devoted to this principle, refusing to succumb to hate or fear. After Danny’s death, she went home to her native France to await Adam’s birth. She and Adam now live in Paris, France.
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Angelina Jolie portrays Mariane Pearl, wife of Daniel Pearl who went missing in Pakistan while she was pregnant.
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• Filming began on location throughout Pune, India, during the months October and November 2006
• Mumbai, India was used for location shots and the house of Mariane Pearl, early November 2006
• The kidnapping scenes were shot on location in Karachi, Pakistan in late November 2006
• Internal shots were undertaken in France and Texas early December 2006
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• The film is an adaptation of Mariane Pearl's memoir, "A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life & Death of My Husband Danny Pearl". It is a true story.
• For security reasons, the majority of the film, including all scenes with Angelina Jolie was shot in Pune, Maharashtra, India
• Angelina Jolie and her family received death threats during filming.
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Angelina's Movie Quotes
• "And kidnappers - their point is to terrorize people. But I am not terrorized, and you can't be terrorized."
• "There are so many people in this city. How would you find one man."
• "Forgive me for correcting you. But it is absolutely the business of a journalist."
• "This film is for our son. So he knows his father was an ordinary man. An ordinary hero."
Quotes from Angelina about the Movie
Address Daniel Pearls Parents at a press conference: "I hope we got some part of Danny’s life and spirit in this movie. I hope that we have made something that speaks to you and to his work.”
On what the movie is about: ''The story unfolds like a mystery. You've got people collecting clues and trying to solve what happened. But it's also very real and personal. We didn't want it to be too melodramatic or too polished. We didn't want it to be a typical movie.''
Quotes from Angelina's collegues
Dan Futterman on working with Angelina: "That actress is truly one of my generation's great, great actors. I had a chance to see my friend Phil [Seymour] Hoffman perform up close a couple years ago. You think, "OK, I've had that experience, I can write that one down and tell it to my kids." Then two years later I'm acting with somebody who's giving that same sort of utterly transformational, beautifully emotional performance: incredibly smart; fine-tuned. I was completely knocked out by her."
Dan Futterman on Angelina's acting: "With her, it seems like the easiest thing in the world. She's improvising, it's an accent that's not her own, and she's comfortable. You cannot dare her to do anything that she's not willing to do"
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