Indian National Award-winning helmer Srijit Mukherji (“Chotushkone”) will direct a British-Indian co-production on Arthur Conan Doyle that blends the Sherlock Holmes creator’s real-life crusade to overturn wrongful convictions with elements from his iconic detective fiction.
The feature, titled “Elementary, My Dear Holmes,” has secured backing from the Conan Doyle Estate as associate producer, with Shahnaab Alam (“The Lunchbox”) producing through London-based Invisible Thread Media and Mukherji’s Matchcut Productions handling the India side.
Set in 1906 London, the narrative finds Doyle grappling with personal turmoil — including his dying wife’s wish for him to marry another woman — while becoming embroiled in the case of George Edalji, a wrongfully convicted man of Indian descent. The film also delves into the plight of Oscar Slater, another victim of judicial injustice, as Doyle applies his investigative prowess to real-world cases that mirror his fictional detective’s adventures.
“I first met Sherlock Holmes as a boy — not in Baker Street, but in the quiet between pages,” Mukherji said. “‘Elementary, My Dear Holmes’ imagines Doyle stepping into his own fiction — a man haunted by the clarity he created, forced to apply it to a world far messier than the one on paper.”
Richard Pooley, director of the Conan Doyle Estate, added, “Few today realise how active he was throughout his adult life in fighting injustice at home and abroad. His campaign made people realise that a better mechanism was required for reviewing unsafe verdicts. In 1907 the Court of Criminal Appeal was established in England and Wales. In 1926 Scotland followed suit, partly as a result of the Oscar Slater case.”
The co-production is being structured under the existing U.K.-India Co-Production Treaty, administered by the British Film Institute and India’s National Film Development Corporation.
Producer Alam said, “A period drama based on the British icon, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to be directed by an Indian film-maker, Srijit Mukherji, represents the shared history of cultural and literary legacy between the two nations.”
Munsur Ali, councilman for the City of London, added, “This isn’t just about more diverse stories, which are extremely important, but the international partnerships that offer new ways of telling stories, engaging with global audiences and more importantly changing the dynamics of who is telling those stories,” Ali said.
The filmmakers emphasized their aim to celebrate the universal power of imagination and moral courage that defined Doyle’s life and work, while exploring what Mukherji describes as “a reflection on the act of creation — on what happens when your invention begins to investigate you.”
