Lilkee: On finally making a film

Monday, November 06, 2006

On finally making a film

After a year of waiting and working, the CFSI film is finally happening. The budget is miniscule, and they want more than I set out to give them, but what the hell? It's 10 years since my Institute days, and this is going to be my first feature film. We are used to guerilla film-making, low or no-budgets and I've been clever enough to write a "do-able" script, and not my usual mad-cap over-ambitious ventures.

The trouble is I'm not feeling elated, or anything. So many years of waiting has dulled my nerves. And I've still to realize that yes, I am making the film.

Avijit Mukul Kishore said...

this is great batul. all the best for your film.

6:15 PM

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About Lilkee

Shot in 35 mm, color, Fuji, duration 67 minutes, “Lilkee” is a fiction feature film on the subject of girls’ education for the Children’s Film Society of India (CFSI), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.

Lilkee, an 11-year-old village girl, is brought to the city by a working couple to take care of their baby. The couple lives in an up-market residential complex, the wife Bela is an architect and the husband Tutu is a corporate executive.

Lilkee makes friends with the children in the complex, who through her realize that life is not as easy for lots of other children as it is for them. Lilkee too sees and is fascinated by many things in the city, which she shares with her mother in the village, through letters.

Through a series of happenings, the couple realizes that they can give a better future to Lilkee and at the end of the film, they decide to send her to school.

The film is a positive film for children and adults, inspired by the thought that a little help in the right direction can go a long way. Often, we don't act because we don't know.

Children specially these days, have less opportunity to mix with children from other worlds. The walls are higher. But when they do cross those walls, it is not too difficult to understand, empathize or help.