E-Paper
Little Spielbergs pan on street life
Meet Asaddur, Devender, Lily, Rajni and Sanjay: Five extraordinary filmmakers aged between 15 and 17 and all illiterate. Armed with a camera, they have captured the life on the street in a documentary film, Patri par Bachpan.
Armed with a camera and a microphone, five street children have captured the life on the street in a documentary film, Patri par Bachpan.
Meet Asaddur, Devender, Lily, Rajni and Sanjay: Five extraordinary filmmakers aged between 15 and 17 and all illiterate.
"In Patri par Bachpan (Growing up on streets), we have told our story, our way," says Sanjay, 16. "After getting engaged in this film, we realised that we were not alone. There are many like us, some in worse conditions. We want people to acknowledge our existence and end police brutality and employers' excesses," adds Devender, 17.
These children learnt to wield the camera with the help of their facilitators as part of an initiative called Participatory Video funded by international development agency ActionAid India (AAI).
The children handled all aspects of filmmaking, from conceptualisation, scripting, shooting, sound, right up to editing. The only step they jumped was background research into the life stories they were shooting - they knew the places and stories like their very own!
Says Lily, 14: "Why don't those without homes count? Just because we are not within the walls of a home, do we not have the right to be safe? Why do the police always chase us away? Why are we doomed to be always hungry? Why are we treated as though we have no identity?"
