Let this be your notice: Slumdog Millionaire star Freida Pinto is not fucking around. Some young actresses would come off a success like Slumdog and jump into crappy comedies or vapid big studio pictures, just for the paycheck and to ‘establish their image’.
Pinto is doing something much better: she’s establishing herself as an actress that knows who to work with. First she signed to Woody Allen’s next movie. Now she’s joined Julian Schnabel’s next project, called Miral. If Schnabel wasn’t on your radar after The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, I don’t even know what to say. Basquiat and Before Night Falls, each with their own flaws, suggested he could be an exceptionally good filmmaker; Diving Bell may mark the beginning of his maturity as a director.
Miral tells the story of Hind Husseini (Hiam Abbas), who founded an orphanage in Jerusalem after the creation of Israel and partitioning of Palestine, in 1948. We don’t know what role Pinto is playing; if you’ve read the Rula Jebreal book that is the basis for Schnabel’s script and can give me a hint, please do so.