India’s movie-mad millions have not yet seen “Slumdog Millionaire,” but this Mumbai-based fairy tale, which opens here next week, is already the toast of Bollywood.
All it took was the Golden Globes.
On Sunday, “Slumdog” — with its cast of actors unknown outside India and its story set on the gritty streets of Mumbai — went home with four Golden Globe awards, and became the movie to beat at the Academy Awards.
“Indian tale catches global fancy,” the Hindustan Times shouted in a proud headline. “The $lumdog Has Its Day,” said the Times of India.
The loudest cheers were saved for renowned Indian composer A.R. Rahman, who won the award for original score.
Subir Malik, a well-known Indian musician, said it was inspiring to see Rahman win a Golden Globe and watch Indian actors like Anil Kapoor, who plays the quiz master in “Slumdog,” share an award stage with some of the brightest lights in Hollywood.
“It was brilliant, it may sound cliched, but it felt very good seeing Rahman winning an award and our own guys like Anil Kapoor on the same stage as Brad Pitt,” he said.
Rahman started out as a rock band keyboard player before his haunting melodies and earthy rhythms captivated Bollywood in the early 1990s. He has composed movie scores for more than 130 Indian films and gone on to write music for numerous overseas ventures, including Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Bombay Dreams,” a musical about India’s movie industry that was a hit in London’s West End but struggled on Broadway.
“Rahman has seen huge success in India, but the U.S. is a totally different market,” said Malik. “For Rahman to win a music award in a language that the critic’s don’t even understand is fantastic. Now when the movie releases here it’s going to be a sellout.”
Mumbai, which is also known as Bombay, is the center of India’s vast Hindi-language film industry, known as Bollywood. More than 200 films are produced every year in Mumbai.
Vijay Singh, chief executive officer of Fox STAR Studios India, which is distributing the movie, is certainly hoping for a blockbuster. It will be released in India on Jan. 23.
“It’s an exceptional film, it has Indian emotion much like a Bollywood film,” Singh said Tuesday, adding that a Hindi version is also being released for smaller towns and villages.
“The film has been built on the buzz, it built its credibility in the U.S. and then rolled out in the rest of the world.”
But scenes of Mumbai’s filthy vast slums have drawn criticism from some viewers. Indian poverty is a delicate issue here, particularly when it is raised by outsiders. While India has gone through spectacular economic growth over the past decade, about 400 million people — more than the entire population of the United States — are believed to live on less than $1 a day.
And while Mumbai has some of the most expensive real estate in the world, more than half the city’s 18 million people live in ramshackle huts packed near train stations or adjoining towering skyscrapers.
But the movie’s fans believe “Slumdog” speaks about hope even as it shows the hard realities of life in the slums, where the poverty can be shattering and the shortage of toilets mean many people are forced to defecate in the open.
“Why run away from things? We have our slums and the world knows about our slums,” said Malik.
SUPERLATIVE Signs Director Claudia Abend For Spots and Branded Content
Latin American director/editor and documentary filmmaker Claudia Abend has joined SUPERLATIVE for her first U.S. representation spanning commercials and branded content.
Abend's empathetic docu-style POV has garnered several international awards for the documentary films Hit (2008) and The Flower of Life (2018). Her spotmaking credits include such brands as Procter & Gamble, Nestle and Blue Cross/Blue Shield. SUPERLATIVE has already worked with Abend, together producing a new ad campaign for digital agency Tinuiti and The Honest Company, a consumer goods corporation featuring eco-minded products.
“We found Claudia through her poignant documentaries on the festival circuit,” said SUPERLATIVE creative manager Stefan Dezil. “We are excited about her textured narratives, emotional storytelling, and her powerhouse long-form storytelling abilities, currently on her third feature film. As SUPERLATIVE continues to build our brand after premiering our latest films at Sundance and SXSW, Claudia is the kind of multidimensional artist we are excited to partner with on branded content and beyond. Fluent in English and Spanish, her reel shows real prowess with infants, food and skin products, families both young and old. Great visual storytelling and inspirational doc work.”
Abend began her career in her native Uruguay, studying film and editing in college. “My dad would show me films like Citizen Kane,” she said. “I love cinema and became an editor. It was here that I learned all about communicating human emotion.”
From the get-go, Abend hit it big as a documentary director, teaming with Adrianna Loeff on Hit, a movie chronicling pop artists of Uruguayan music. Abend took home a Best Editing... Read More