Streaming platform Zee5 has acquired the rights to the Emraan Hashmi starrer Tigers – Can A Salesman Be A Hero? Zee5 will be releasing the Indo-French production on the video-on-demand service on November 21, according to a press release.
Directed by Oscar-winning Bosnian filmmaker Danis Tanovic (No Man’s Land), Tigers is based on the story of Pakistani salesman Syed Aamir Raza and his fight against “unjust practices in the baby products’ industry”, according to the official synopsis. Also starring Adil Hussain, Geetanjali Thapa, Danny Huston, Khalid Abdalla, Supriya Pathak and Satyadeep Misra, Tigers was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014.
Raza was a former employee at Nestle. In 1999, two years after he left the company, he released a report in association with Baby Milk Action documenting the alleged unethical practices by the food and beverage giant in Pakistan to encourage doctors to push their products rather than insisting on breast milk for infants.
Nestle, which denied the allegations, has commented on the film on their website. “The events depicted in the film, which is set in the 1990s, seriously misrepresent the facts about our activities,” the company said. “They appear to be based on highly questionable allegations made in a report called Milking the Profits, published in 1999. The allegations in this report, and the events in the film, are not at all consistent with our policy and practices on the responsible marketing of breastmilk substitutes, to which we are fully committed everywhere in the world.”
Nestle claimed that Raza’s allegations had been investigated and “substantial evidence” was collected to prove that they were unfounded. The company said it would not be taking any legal action against the film’s producers, which include Guneet Monga from Mumbai.
