Living the dream! 14 underprivileged kids from Delhi slums make Cannes debut

NEW DELHI: It is the most unlikely film crew — 14 underprivileged children from slums across New Delhi — who defied the odds to shoot a documentary showcasing their lives and aspirations. And on Wednesday, their efforts bore fruit. Their film, ‘Delhi Dreams’, was screened at the British Pavilion of the 71st Cannes Film Festival.

The 14 “dreamers” are students between 15 and 18 years of age, studying at Nai Disha, a school run by Smile Foundation, an NGO working for youth empowerment through education. They were chosen to work as “directors” during a 10-day workshop organised by the NGO in collaboration with a UK-based charity, Films Without Borders (FWB), which works to “overcome barriers” through cinema.

After the selection process, the students were trained by FWB’s Jill Samuels and cinematographer Richard Blanshard in November 2017. And the final product was ready in a month.


“All of us love films and we wanted to tell our own stories. At the workshop, we learnt how big directors actually make films. We know how to pan the camera, how to use reflectors and boom mics,” said Arbaaz, 17, one of the five children whose stories have been detailed minutely during the course of the film. Arbaaz, whose father is an embroiderer and mother, a housewife, aspires to be a photographer. “We got to know that our film is being screened abroad. A lot of people will watch it and, maybe, they will like it as well,” said the Class X student.

The other children, whose lives and dreams were captured on reel, are Roshni, Shikha, Bharat and Murshid. The film also captures scenes of the children meeting their role models and interacting with them to give them a “real feel” of the professions they are interested in. Soon after the in-class learning experience, the children travelled to actual locations to shoot their own lives in the settings that they understood the best — their homes, their role models’ workplaces and their school at Vasant Kunj. The experience, they say, was “scary but exciting”.

“We were scared initially because everything was new to us. But we learnt the flow easily and began to enjoy our trips. We went to a lot of new places in a minibus and interacted with inspiring people,” said Roshni, 16, who was a part of the crew and wants to be a makeup artist.

Talking about the workshop and the subsequent film shot by the children, Smile executive trustee and chairman Jitendra Mishra said: “The workshop we conducted not only allowed these children to unearth their raw talent, but also helped them build confidence and learn about themselves. We are extremely happy and proud that the film has reached such a prestigious international platform.”