A Prayer for Rain

A young man driving a rickshaw in Bhopal gets a job at the chemical plant in the city. The plant is what the neighbourhood lives on and work there is good luck. Safety measures loosen one by one over the years and warnings go unheeded. On the night of 2 December 1984 one of the tanks releases poison gas, and the gas settles over sleeping neighbourhoods. Ravi Kumar's film takes the Union Carbide disaster as its subject. Thousands of people died that night and afterwards, more than a hundred thousand were affected, and the health consequences continue today. Martin Sheen plays the company's chairman, with Kal Penn and Mischa Barton as journalists. The film drew mixed reviews, and some organisations working for the victims' rights said it presented the events in a distorted way.