Photos: Go Inside the London Screening of POACHER, Starring Alia Bhatt

The upcoming Amazon Original Poacher held a special screening in London. Written, created, and directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Richie Mehta and produced by QC Entertainment, Poacher features an accomplished ensemble cast including Nimisha Sajayan, Roshan Mathew, and Dibyendu Bhattacharya. The series is a riveting fictionalized dramatization of real-life events based on a group of Indian Forest Service officers, NGO workers, police constables, and good Samaritans who risked their lives trying to track down and bring to justice the biggest elephant ivory poaching ring in the history of India.

See photos below!

Richie Mehta, along with Manish Menghani, director, content licensing at Prime Video India, Executive Producer, Alia Bhatt, and QC Entertainment’s principals Raymond Mansfield and Sean McKittrick visited London for the publicity of the series ahead of its global streaming premiere. Celebrities including Freida Pinto, Gurinder Chadha, Meera Syal, Anu Menon, Soni Razdan, Shaheen Bhatt along with esteemed filmmakers, members from wildlife protection organizations and media attended the special preview, followed by a tete-e-tete with the Poacher team, along with Lionel Hachemin, Program Manager - Wildlife Crime, IFAW UK. The conversation focused on the making of the investigative crime series, the research undertaken by Richie, and how he balanced fact and fiction to maintain authenticity to the real events that transpired. The team reinforced that while Poacher is an
important story that is engaging and thought-provoking, it will also entertain and influence change.

Richie Mehta, writer, director and creator shared, “While working on a project in 2015, I received a video of the largest raid on ivory poaching in the history of India from the folks at Wildlife Trust of India, which completely shook me and I called them back to understand it. And just then I knew this subject needed the right context to fairly and accurately depict the gravity of wildlife poaching. I spent the next few years researching and writing the story in a way that not only does justice to the altruistic efforts of the wildlife crime fighters but also spreads awareness through an engaging and entertaining narrative.”

Manish Menghani, director, content licensing at Prime Video India, shared, “Apart from Poacher being gripping, it is also thought-provoking. It is a universal, important subject that needs to be told. Besides being a genius filmmaker, Richie is also a researcher that puts in years into a project. We are confident that this series will have viewers on the edge of their seats, when we premiere all eight episodes on 23rd February on Prime Video for a global audience.”

Executive Producer of Poacher, Alia Bhatt shared, “I met Richie nearly two years ago and we happened to speak about Poacher. Watching the series as an audience, me and my sister Shaheen, who is also my partner at Eternal Sunshine Productions, were so moved that we instantly knew we had to be a part of it in a meaningful way. What we watch and consume has the power to slowly seep into the mindset and DNAs of our audience, especially young minds who aspire to become a force for good. Entertainment has the power to influence minds and I believe I could use my voice to spread awareness about such a crucial message.”

Raymond Mansfield and Sean McKittrick, Producers, QC Entertainment said, “Poacher is all about ‘entertainment with purpose’. It is about people who are fighting criminals who are destroying the planet.”. When asked to share three reasons to watch the series, they shared, “While there are many reasons, Poacher promises to be exciting, meaningful and unforgettable.”

Following the extremely encouraging response to the trailer that launched earlier this week, the episodes screened at Sundance and now at the special preview in London, have heightened the anticipation for Poacher ahead of its release on February 23 in over 240 countries and territories.

ABOUT PRIME VIDEO

Prime Video is a premium streaming service that offers Prime members a collection of award-winning Amazon Originals, thousands of movies and TV shows—all with the ease of finding what they love to watch in one place.

Prime Video is just one of the many benefits of a Prime membership, available for just ₹1499/ year. Amazon Prime is designed to make your life better every single day as it provides the best of shopping, savings, and entertainment in one single membership. In India, members get Free Same- day/1-day delivery on eligible items, access to exclusive deals, early access to shopping events, exclusive access to our global shopping event Prime Day; and unlimited access to award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime Video, unlimited access to more than 100 million songs, ad free and millions of podcast episodes with Amazon Music, a free rotating selection of more than 3,000 books, magazines and comics with Prime Reading, access to monthly free-in game and benefits with Prime
Gaming. Prime members can also earn unlimited 5% cashback on all purchases on Amazon.in using the Amazon Pay ICICI Bank credit card i.e., Co-Branded Credit Card (CBCC) as compared to 3% for customers without Prime membership. Go to www.amazon.in/prime to learn more about Prime.

ABOUT QC ENTERTAINMENT

Films produced/executive produced by the principals of QC Entertainment have garnered 12 Academy Award® nominations (including 2 wins and back-to-back Best Picture nominations), 7 Golden Globe nominations, 7 BAFTA nominations, 2 back-to-back AFI Awards for ‘Movie of the Year,’ nominations from all guilds (including DGA, WGA, SAG, and PGA incl. the PGA’s Stanley Kramer Award), along with dozens of other award nominations including from The National Board of Review, The Independent Spirit Awards and the Critics Choice Awards, amongst many more, and have premiered at the world’s most prestigious film festivals including Cannes, Toronto, Sundance and SXSW. QC’s latest feature It Lives Inside — a horror-thriller from filmmaker Bishal Dutta — won the Midnighters Audience Award at SXSW 2023 and was released by Neon in September 2023.

ABOUT ETERNAL SUNSHINE PRODUCTIONS

Great stories are at the heart of Eternal Sunshine, a production company founded in 2021 by Alia Bhatt, one of the most celebrated and sought-after actorsin Indian cinema; and Shaheen Bhatt, author of the bestselling book on mental health, ‘I've never been (Un)Happier’(Penguin eBury Press, 2019). The production house is home to emerging and established storytellers alike. Its maiden feature film, Darlings, released in March 2022, was a co-production with Red Chillies and marked the debut of director Jasmeet K Reen. Eternal Sunshine is now gearing up for its next release, Jigra, an action-adventure directed by Vasan Bala and co-produced by Dharma Productions. With several other projects across genres currently under development, Eternal Sunshine Productions is set to usher in a new wave of modern-cinema, one that shall be guided by Alia and Shaheen's pursuit of creating an all-encompassing world of timeless tales.

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