NEW DELHI: A seminal documentary on Daniel Pearl, the American reporter killed in Pakistan while on the trail of the Al Qaeda, is set for a April 27 New York world premiere. The Journalist and the Jehadi: The Murder Of Daniel Pearl works on various levels, explained co-director Romesh Sharma.

“It is a profile of Pearl the journalist and of Omar Sheikh (the British-born Al Qaeda operative who has been sentenced to death for the murder and a chronicle of the events that took place when their lives intersected in Pakistan post-9/11.

“It’s a story that not just talks about Daniel Pearl and Omar Sheikh but also talks about the ISI. It talks about other forces that were there working within the story. So there were a number of sub-texts within the film,” Sharma said of the work that took two years to complete and has been co-directed by Pakistan-born British filmmaker Ahmed Jamal.

The duo, and US TV major HBO, have co-produced the 88-minute documentary that has cost almost as much as a full length feature film and has been narrated by noted CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour.

“Everybody who has seen the film so far finds it very moving and extremely relevant because it’s the story of a man who tries to bridge the divided world. It’s the story of a great journalist,” Sharma said.

“It is most ironic Pearl should have got killed in the way he was, because of all the people, he was probably the last person to be termed anti-Islamic. In fact, in the WSJ (Wall Street Journal) newsroom, he was called Danny of Arabia,” he added.

Pearl, the WSJ bureau chief in Mumbai, was kidnapped in Karachi and murdered on January 29, 2002 while chasing the paper trail left by the 9/11 bombers.

Unlike other journalists, Sharma maintained, Pearl “attempted in his own idealistic way — and that was probably the humanism in the man — to bridge the world, a divided world through his writings”.