Don't judge Kavi by my skin colour: Director

Thursday, March 04, 2010 (New Delhi)

After Slumdog Millionaire another Indian poverty story is in the running for the Oscars this year, but Gregg Helvey, the American director of Kavi, says that his film does not sell Indian misery to the West.

Helvey who spent the past three years writing, directing and producing the 19-minute film about a family of bonded labourers, said that the film is not a "reaction" to Slumdog's success.

"I hope people watch Kavi before they pass judgement on the film or on me as 'just another foreigner'. Kavi is a story about hope and the triumph of the human spirit and it illustrates a beautiful aspect of India and humanity," said Helvey.

The fictional film shot in Hindi marks Helvey's debut as a filmmaker and has been nominated for an Oscar in the 'Short Film (Live Action)' category.

Last year, the India story dominated the Academy Awards with three films, Slumdog Millionaire, the potboiler set in the underbelly of Mumbai's crime and poverty and two documentaries The Final Inch and Smile Pinki.

Slumdog which swept the award circuit and took home eight Oscars had opened a debate about the representation of India in films by Western filmmakers, with many critics slamming it as "a white man's idea of India."

But Helvey who has already won the Student Academy Awards for the film, says that his film, which was shot before Slumdog even went into production, is "authentic".

"I did see Slumdog and I enjoyed it, but Kavi wasn't made as a reaction to Slumdog's success. India is dear to my heart, so it was incredibly important for me to make Kavi as authentic as possible. My film shows that Indians are helping Indians to stop the injustice of modern-day slavery," said the 30-year-old filmmaker.

Helvey, who first came to India 7 years ago for the shooting of a BBC documentary, spent a year visiting brick kilns and meeting child workers. The journey was a tedious one and interestingly the film which took three years to make, was shot in just 7 days.

"I visited about 20 different brick kilns throughout the country, met the workers, took photos and video, and soaked up as much as I could. My brother Joe came with me, and I credited him in the film as 'Location Scout Security' because they let me know that I was not welcome in certain kilns," said Helvey.

The filmmaker first came to know of the existence of slavery during his brief stint in the National Geographic channel and he was hooked to it. As he dug into research, he learned that the most prevalent yet least-known form of modern-day slavery is bonded labour.

"The majority of films I had seen exposed sex slavery and human trafficking, but there is very little on bonded labour. I read about some brick kilns in India and Pakistan where entire families are forced to make bricks in order to pay off 'loans' they are tricked into taking," said the director who then made up his mind to tackle the subject in his thesis film for his degree from the University of Southern California.

The hard work paid off for Helvey when his film was nominated for an Oscar, but the young filmmaker is still pinching himself.

"I still can't believe it! It doesn't get any better than an Oscar nomination," said Helvey who shot the film on a shoe-string budget in and around Shirwal, near Mumbai.

Produced by Guneet Monga and Harish Amin, the film aims at creating awareness about the issue of slavery and 30 per cent of proceeds from DVD sales will go to anti-slavery organisations.

Don't judge Kavi by my skin colour: Director