Black Friday (2004 film)

Black Friday
Theatrical release poster
Directed byAnurag Kashyap
Written byAnurag Kashyap
Based onBlack Friday: The True Story of the Bombay Bomb Blasts
by Hussain Zaidi
Produced byArindam Mitra
Starring
CinematographyNatarajan Subramaniam
Edited byAarti Bajaj
Music byIndian Ocean
Production
companies
Mid Day Multimedia Limited
Big Bang Pictures
Mirror Films
Distributed byJhamu Sughand
Adlabs
Release dates
  • 13 August 2004 (2004-08-13) (Locarno)
  • 9 February 2007 (2007-02-09) (India)
Running time
162 minutes
CountryIndia
LanguageHindi
Budget6.5 crore (equivalent to 20 crore or US$2.4 million in 2023)[1]
Box office8 crore (equivalent to 24 crore or US$2.9 million in 2023)[1]

Black Friday is a 2004 Indian Hindi-language crime film written and directed by Anurag Kashyap. Based on Black Friday: The True Story of the Bombay Bomb Blasts, a book by Hussain Zaidi about the 1993 Bombay bombings, it chronicles the events that led to the blasts and the subsequent police investigation. Produced by Arindam Mitra of Mid-Day, the film stars Pawan Malhotra, Kay Kay Menon, Aditya Srivastava, Kishor Kadam and Zakir Hussain.

Mitra, director of operations for Mid Day, approached Kashyap with the book and wanted him to write a television series based on it for the Aaj Tak TV news channel. Kashyap wrote the script in episodes for the six-part miniseries but later felt a feature film was more appropriate for the topic. Aaj Tak backed away from the project, and it was shelved. Kashyap then suggested to the director Aditya Bhattacharya that he make it into a film. When Kashyap told him he felt there was a film to be made about the event, Bhattacharya gave it to him to direct. The film's soundtrack album and the background score were composed by the band Indian Ocean, while the lyrics were written by Piyush Mishra. Natarajan Subramaniam served as the director of photography, while Aarti Bajaj was its editor.

Black Friday premiered at the 2004 Locarno International Film Festival and was supposed to be released the same year in India. However, after a petition filed by a group accused of the 1993 bomb blasts challenging the film's release, the Bombay High Court issued a stay. Until judgement was delivered on the case, it could not be released. On 9 February 2007, after the verdict was announced, the Supreme Court of India allowed its release. The film received critical acclaim. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles and was a nominee for the Golden Leopard award at the Locarno International Film Festival. Made on a production budget of 6.5 crore (US$780,000), it grossed a total of 8 crore (US$960,000) at the box office.

  1. ^ a b "Are small budget films, the next big thing in Bollywood?". The Economic Times. 18 June 2008. Archived from the original on 1 January 2018. Retrieved 1 January 2018.