Salaam Bombay!
| Salaam Bombay! | |
|---|---|
 Film poster |
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| Directed by | Mira Nair |
| Produced by | Mira Nair Gabriel Auer |
| Written by | Mira Nair Sooni Taraporevala |
| Starring | Shafiq Syed Tara lasrado Hansa Vithal Chanda Sharma Anita Kanwar Nana Patekar Raghuvir Yadav |
| Music by | L. Subramaniam |
| Cinematography | Sandi Sissel |
| Editing by | Barry Alexander Brown |
| Distributed by | Cinecom Pictures (USA) |
| Release date(s) | 13 September 1988 (Toronto Film Festival) |
| Running time | 113 min |
| Country | India United Kingdom France |
| Language | Hindi English |
Salaam Bombay! (Hindi: सलाम बॉम्बे!) is a 1988 Hindi film directed by Mira Nair, and screenwritten by her longtime creative collaborator, Sooni Taraporevala. The film chronicles the day-to-day life of children living on the streets of Mumbai. It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi, the National Board of Review Award for Top Foreign Film, the Golden Camera and Audience Awards at the Cannes Film Festival, and three awards at the Montréal World Film Festival. The film was India's second film submission to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film was among the list of "The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made" by the New York Times.[1]
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Plot summary [edit]
Fed up with being continuously bullied by his elder brother, Krishna sets fire to his brother's motor-bike, which lands him in big trouble with his mother. She takes him to the nearby Apollo Circus and tells him that he can only come home when he earns 500 rupees to pay for the damaged bike. Krishna agrees and finds a job with the circus. One day his boss asks him to run an errand and, when Krishna returns, he finds that the circus has packed up and left. Alone, with nowhere to turn, and unable to find the money to repay his mother, he travels to the nearest big city: Bombay. As soon as he arrives, he is robbed of his meager possessions. He follows the thieves, befriends them, and ends up in the city's notorious red-light area of Falkland Road, near the Grant Road Railway Station.
One of the thieves, Chillum, a drug pusher and addict, helps Krishna get a job at the Grant Road Tea Stall. Krishna gets a new name, "Chaipau," and learns to live with it. His goal is to get the money he needs to return home to his mother, but he soon finds out that saving money in his surroundings with the people near him is next to impossible. To make matters worse, he has a crush on a young prostitute named Sola Saal. He sets fire to her room and attempts to escape with her, but the two are caught. This gets Krishna a severe beating, and he loses his job. He works odd jobs to feed himself and look after Chillum, who can't live without his drugs. To get more money, Krishna and his pals rob an elderly Parsi man by breaking into his house in broad daylight.
One night while returning home, the boys are apprehended by the police and taken to a juvenile home. Eventually, Krishna escapes and goes back to his world of drug-pushers, pimps and prostitutes, still nurturing his dream of one day returning to his mother.
Cast [edit]
- Shafiq Syed - Krishna/Chaipau
- Hansa Vithal - Manju
- Chanda Sharma - Sola Saal
- Raghuvir Yadav - Chillum
- Anita Kanwar - Rekha
- Nana Patekar - Baba
- Irrfan Khan - Letter Writer
- Raju Bernad - Keera
- Chandrashekhar Naidu - Chungal
- Sarfuddin Quarrassi - Koyla
- Mohanraj Babu - Salim
- Sanjana Kapoor - Foreigner reporter
Awards [edit]
Won [edit]
- 1988: Audience Award, Cannes Film Festival
- 1988: Golden Camera, Cannes Film Festival
- 1988: National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi
- 1988: National Film Award for Best Child Artist: Shafiq Syed [2]
- 1988: National Board of Review Awards: Top Foreign Film
- 1988 : Lilian Gish Award Excellence in Feature Film, Los Angeles Women in Film Festival (tied with Elysium)
- 1988: Jury Prize, Montréal World Film Festival (tied with The Dawning)
- 1988: Most Popular Film, Montréal World Film Festival
- 1988: Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, Montréal World Film Festival
Nominated [edit]
- 1989: Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
- 1990: BAFTA Film Award Best Film not in the English Language
- 1989: César Award for Best Foreign Film (Meilleur film étranger)
- 1990: Filmfare Best Director Award
- 1989: Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Production [edit]
Most of the young actors who appeared in Salaam Bombay! were actual street children. They received dramatic training at a special workshop in Bombay before they appeared in the film. In 1989, director Mira Nair established an organization called the Salaam Baalak Trust,[3] to rehabilitate the children who appeared in the film. Most of them were eventually helped. The Trust is still in existence, and now lends support to street children in Mumbai/Bombay, Delhi and Bhubaneshwar. Shafiq Syed, who played the role of Krishna in the movie now earns his living as an autorickshaw driver in Bangalore.[4]
References [edit]
- ^ "The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made". New York Times. Retrieved September 21, 2011.
- ^ Awards Internet Movie Database.
- ^ More information on the Salaam Baalak Trust at GiveWorld.
- ^ News Report in The Times of India
External links [edit]
- Salaam Bombay! at the Internet Movie Database
- Salaam Bombay! Film Review at Filmreference
- Salaam Baalak Trust
- Salaam Bombay: A Film Review
- Salaam star now a rickshaw driver
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