The gruesome story of the killing of Graham Stuart Staines, an Australian missionary working among lepers in Odisha and his two minor sons, Philip (10) and Timothy (6), who were burnt to death at Manoharpur in Keonjhar January 22, 1999, has gone celluloid.
The movie has hit the cinemas in India on March 29. It is being screened in Bhubaneswar at the Cinepolis at Esplanade One in Rasulgarh.
The English language film, titled ‘The Least of These: The Graham Staines Story’, stars Stephen Baldwin as Graham Staines, Shari Rigby as his wife, Gladys and Prakash Belawadi as a newspaper editor. Sharman Joshi, of the ‘3 Idiots’ fame, has played the role of a journalist in the film. Baldwin is known for his roles in The Usual Suspects (1995) and The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000).
The film, co-written by Aneesh Daniel and Andrew Mathews, recounts the facts of the case but introduces a fictional element through Joshi’s investigative journalism. “We struggled a lot on the character of Graham, because we did not find any conflict in his life,” Daniel, who directed the film, said.
“He was a man who was very much loved and respected in that part of Odisha. We decided to look at the film from a journalist’s point of view. From a fictional character’s point of view, we reveal the truth,” he said.
“The film is nowhere connected to faith or preaching. There is a thin layer of faith because it is the story of a missionary. As a filmmaker, I have never struggled (with the dilemma) that faith is overpowering my storytelling,” Daniel said.
