I was listening to the BBC today and got an interesting story about a 10-year old Indian boy who’s directing his first feature film - due in April 2006.
The interview was interesting in itself, although you could tell the journalist was in awe and couldn’t decide whether to ask “kids stuff” or go for professional questions.
Kishan Shrikanth (a.k.a. Kishan or Master Kishan) is an experienced actor with more than 20 feature films under his belt. He also starred in more than 1,000 episodes of different soap operas. I wouldn’t go so far as to qualify him as “indie” - unless we also agree that Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation) is “indie”.
He was inspired to write the script when he saw some slum boys who were selling newspapers in the streets instead of going to school. His father’s explanation (slum boys had to work because they had no parents) made him come up a short story about a slum boy who goes to school. He showed the story to his father and his father showed it to his friends.
To make a long story short, he was selected to direct on the strength of the story and his acting (he has the lead role).
In the BBC interview, Kishan talked about lenses, selecting the right angle, and naturally, about missing playing games.
The Guinness Book of Records currently lists a 13-year old (Sydney Ling) as the youngest director to helm a professional, feature-length production. Kishan has a pretty good chance to beat him and make it to Guinness Book of Records 2006. The movie’s called Care of Footpath. It’s still in principal photography but you might want to check it out when it comes out in April.
When we’re kids we all think we’ll be Mozart, but in the end, we’re real lucky, if we end up as Salieri. After all, Salieri was a gifted musician. He just got bad press.
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