Starring: Salim, Sushil Sharma and Megnaa Mehtaa Costumes: Ritu Kumar Audiography: Roland Heap Director of Photography: Markus Huersch Music: Nainita Desai Associate Producer: Sarah Tierney Co- Producer: Dileep Singh Rathore Written, Edited and Directed by: Ashvin Kumar

Synopsis

Jamal, a 10 year old Muslim Pakistani mistakenly crosses the border between India and Pakistan, finding an unusual ally in a Hindu Brahmin, Bhola. Indian soldiers descend on Bhola's village searching for the 'terrorist' who crossed over. His neice Rani, insists they can't let a Muslim into their Hindu home. With Bhola and Rani grappling with the consequences of harboring a Pakistani and their deep-set prejudice against Muslims, Jamal's only hope is the humanity shared by a people separated by artificial boundaries a long time ago.

Little Terrorist is based on a true story: In early 2003 - a twelve-year-old Pakistani boy crossed the Indo Pak border by mistake. Then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, amidst PR fanfare, restored the boy to his family in Pakistan, kicking off the thaw in tensions between these two nuclear countries who came so close to war less than a year earlier.

From idea / script to screen - the production of Little Terrorist was completed between Nov 2003 and March 2004, in less than four months. The crew was assembled by Director Ashvin Kumar's Alipur Films in London via www.shootingpeople.org, a website mainly for Indie filmmaking resoucrces in UK. All crew members worked free-of-cost and travelled to India at their own expense. On The Road Productions, a Los Angeles and Bombay based company headed by co-producer Dileep Singh Rathore, brought on line-producer Vans Pradeep Singh to stitch the Indian end of the production together. The DOP Markus Huersch had previously worked with Ashvin Kumar on Road to Ladakh.

Working to a shoe-string budget, an exciting shoot began with the crew welcoming in the New Year 2004 at a tented camp in the middle of the Rajasthan desert. The crew had to contend with freezing mornings and nights, a remote location and logistical nightmares.

Coming to the casting, the central role was played by Salim, a street-child from the Salaam Baalak Trust established by film director Mira Nair after the success of her film Saalam Bombay. Salim was discovered by a social worker who brought him to the trust as a seven year old child when he got separated from his mother. It took the trust three years to locate his family based on the fragments of information provided by the disoriented Salim. Even though Salim now visits his family and his siblings visit him - he prefers to stay at the Saalam Baalak Trust where he attends school and as part of the curriculum is encouraged and exposed to the best practitioners of theatre and dance. Salim is a naturally gifted performer. What is distinctive about his abilities is a rare sense of discipline, patience and responsibility that makes him a delight to work with. Covered with thorns, having to squat in uncomfortable rocky holes for extended periods of time and having to brave the Rajasthani winter in nothing but a cotton kurta / pyjama (his costume), Salim never once complained of the physical hardship that he no doubt underwent but delivered a performance of remarkable honesty, reflexiveness demonstrating a keen 'actorly' sixth sense. Sushil Sharma a clerk in the Delhi electrical supply company and part of Delhi theatre and Meghnaa Mehtaa, acting for the first time on screen lend solid support.

Due to the limited budget and the director's insistence on authentic Rajasthani music for the film, several troupes of Laangar musicians auditioned for the cast and crew after wrap each night, under the stars, around a bon-fire. The selected group not only featured in the film but were called out to the wrap party where sound recordist Roland Heap, who works at Abbey Road as sound engineer, set up a virtual studio and recorded everything they sang that night. The rustic sounds of the desert add tremendously to BAFTA nominated composer Nainita Desai's score and the laangar troupe not only provide the music in the film but also feature in it as the wandering minstrals. What started as an improvised cost-saving impulse became a lyrical and unique fusion of Indian folk and a more traditional western composed film score.

A freak accident almost brought the production to an early close as the tent containing the film stock caught on fire and was burned to the ground. Brave members of Vans Pradeep's crew ran into the burning tent to retrieve the stock.

In this remote desert location word spread quickly that a film was being shot. In the land of Bollywood, cinema-crazy tractor loads of villagers from far-flung villages poured onto the set with wives, children, dressed in their best as if for a day-out to the circus. Two hundred villagers crowded dangerously on the lip of an amphitheatre like quarry where the crew were shooting a complicated scene. Getting live / sync sound during these periods was no mean task by sound recordist Roland Heap. The eager audience were most disappointed as they waited in vain for Megnaa (Rani in the film) to break into a traditional Bollywood dance sequence.!

Other mishaps included a heard of cows, panicked by DOP Markus Huersch with camera on a crane, head-butted each other almost taking with them our three actors who were crouched under a bush waiting for them to pass. The shot was framed so to see the actors from between the cow's legs but the shy bovine refused to co-operate and our trying to time this sequence with 'magic-hour' (or the time when the sun is just about to set) was in vain. The only casualty in that mishap was one of Roland's expensive microphones. On the final day, the wandering musicians (who feature in the film) almost did not make it to the set in time, being arrested in Jaipur due to a misunderstanding over their papers and line-producer Vans Pradeep had to pull strings to get them out.

A self-funding professional crew, a multi-dialect production team, the remote location, a very stretched budget, crew illness, burning tents, broken equipment and unwanted extras...just a few of the unusual and challenging elements to this production. But it also proved an unforgettable experience for all involved. In the end, it is testament to the crews' dedication that the resulting film is such a success of emotive and visually-stunning storytelling.

Little Terrorist had its world premiere in Montreal where it won top honours, showing for the first time to capacity crowds. In the same week it opened at three other festivals around the Americas - the selective Telluride Film Festival, Sao Paulo Shorts Film Festival and the Palm Springs Short Film Festival, the latter is the largest short film event in America; here Little Terrorist was chosen to be screened a second time in the final day in a best films of the festival program and polled as one of the top twenty films of the festival by an audience vote.

Winning the first prize at Montreal makes Little Terrorist eligible to apply for the Academy Awards for short films. When asked about his plans for the Oscars, speaking from the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival, Ashvin said

"To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time an Indian short film has made itself eligible and I am going to go for it!"

When asked about his future plans, Ashvin replied that he is in pre-production with his debut feature film which is a Hindi language thriller, The Forest that will begin shooting in India in January 2005 and his first short film, Road To Ladakh has been expanded into a feature film and will begin shooting in the summer of 2005.

Ashvin Kumar began working as an actor and director in theatre. He undertook a degree in Media and Communications at Goldsmith's College, University of London, in 1996, after which he began working in films as an editor. Between 1996 and 2001, Ashvin edited, produced, acted-in and directed plays, short films, commercials and music videos, whilst setting up his own digital post-production business in New Delhi, India. In 2001, Ashvin relocated to London and briefly attended the London Film School. Ashvin also got great acclaim for his earlier film Road to Ladakh.