Miral

Jerusalem, 1948. On her way to work, Hind Husseini comes across 55 orphaned children in the street. She takes them home to give them food and shelter. Within six months, 55 had grown to almost 2000, and the Dar Al-Tifel Institute was born. At the age of 7, Miral was sent to the Institute by her father following her mother’s death. Brought up safely inside the Institute’s walls, she is naïve to the troubles that surround her. Then, at the age of 17, she is assigned to teach at a refugee camp where she is awakened to the reality of her people’s struggle. When she falls for political activist, Hani, she finds herself torn between the fight for the future of her people and Mama Hind’s belief that education is the road to peace.

Related Photos

More photos at our Miral gallery!

Trivia and Fun Facts

• Freida Pinto arrived one month before the movie started filming in order to get into character.
• Freida Pinto studied Arabic for 2-3 weeks before starting to work on the movie.

Movie Quotes

Miral: My name is Miral Hasna. I was Born in 1973. But my story really begins in 1947 with Hind Husseini.

Production Notes and Cast Quotes

“The moment I read the script, I fell in love with the story, because it wasn’t just a story about four women; it was a story of the people of Israel and Palestine. I felt if there were any way I could be part of this peacemaking process by lending a human touch to the character, I wanted to be involved. I wish people would [remember]that there are children and soldiers dying on both sides. You can’t ignore the politics, but hopefully that won’t become the focus of the film.” (Freida Pinto on what drew her to the movie)

“Like you say, it’s a true story and the background is so current. It’s something that’s happening in Israel and Palestine even today. But I also feel the message of education and hope in the film supersedes the politics – I met Rula before we started filming and became very aware that it’s a human story. And of course the director Julian Schnabel attracted me, because when you watch a film like The Diving Bell & The Butterfly, you know this is going to be something special.” (Freida Pinto on what drew her to the movie)

“Although it would be my own interpretation, the person I was playing was definitely Rula, and I wanted to understand more about why she did what she did when she did it. There was so much learning and growing up one could do by only doing research. Forget about the next bit, which is putting it into action and performing.” (Freida Pinto on her stay with a family in Jerusalem to prepare for the role)

“I was a bit uncomfortable having Rula there then. I just thought they are replaying everything that happened to her, I’m doing it in front of her, and that didn’t feel right. It felt inhuman, almost, making someone watch something so traumatic that they’ve been through. But at the same time I feel having her there after the scene really helped her as well as me. I got an insight into her where I just sensed her bravery in going through what she went through. I asked if she really had scars on her back and she did show them to me. It is not something she shows everybody.” (Freida Pinto on having author Rula Jebreal on set during the torture-scene)

“This is what I always say: If Sir Ben Kingsley can play Gandhi, anyone from anywhere-as long as they understand the essence of the character and the emotions of the character-can be or play anything. This whole thing about race-I understand that sometimes you need to be true to the ethnicity or the country the person comes from, but I feel like an Indian can easily play a Palestinian, or the other way around. It’s a culture where people have a very dynamic kind of a look-they look very Middle Eastern. I see people who look very Asian as well. There’s a bit of the African culture injected into that too. I wasn’t worried about how my character looked-I was worried about getting the emotions bang-on.” (Freida Pinto on being believeable as a Palestinian)

“I feel like the history between Israel and Palestine has a lot in common with the history between India and Pakistan. Anybody, anywhere in the world, all they want is to be free, to choose what they want to do without having someone tell them how to do it. When that is taken away from you-when you have to be a prisoner in your own land-it’s absolutely disconcerting. I’ve not experienced that in India, because my country has given me everything quite openly and quite freely, and I have a family that has never restricted me from doing anything that I’ve wanted. But to feel that that could be taken away from me one day by a certain power up there in the government that I have no control over-that I would have to just bow down in front of-thinking about that makes me feel very helpless and angry.” (Freida Pinto on relating to Miral’s political struggle)

“I’m never going to be entirely happy with a performance. I need to push myself in order to get better. I look at the negative criticism as constructively as possible. People are opinionated. I am opinionated. It’s human nature.” (Freida Pinto on the negative reviews)

“That was a process of auditions. I read the script in December 2008. I fell in love with the story and felt that it had to be told. Danny Boyle knew I was excited about this project and he put me on tape for that audition because he is just a wonderful man. It was Danny’s audition as well. He played the role of the police officer. Danny can play scary parts well. He can really instill fear in you.” (Freida Pinto on how she became involved with the project)

“They did a scene where Miral finds out her father is very sick, and she leant over to talk to him and looked at him with such love and affection. The movie is so much about this relationship between a young girl and her father, and I felt Freida had it inside of her and I wasn’t wrong. I guess I had a lot of faith in her because she had only made one movie before. But in my most exigent kind of manner I tried to find a mistake in what she did in ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and I couldn’t find one.” (Director Julian Schnabel on why Freida was right for the part of Miral)

“She worked as hard as anybody I’ve ever met. There’s nothing to it but to do it, and Freida is one of those actresses who does it.” (Johnny Depp on Freida’s performance as Miral)