World's Youngest Director

Guinness World Record holder Kishan Shrikanth directed his first feature film at the age of 9! Now, at 15, Kishan has big plans for the future and shares them with Youth Inc

Curiosity Makes You a Director
When I was about four years old, one of my dad’s friends suggested my name for a movie where they needed a four-year-old kid. I was called for an audition, after which I was selected and on the same day I started acting. All child actors on the set would be engaged for several hours (about 2-3 hours). The rest of the time, they would play around. I was curious about the camera, the lights and how film works. This curiosity made me go and ask each and every crew member on the set, right from a light boy to the cinematographer and the film director, about various things. They would tell me or rather indirectly teach me small things and press reporters wrote in the papers that one day I might become a film director. But never did they nor I nor my parents guessed that I would end up a film director at the age of nine.

The 9-Year-Old Filmmaker
I directed my first film at the age of nine. The movie was Care of Footpath. It is the success story of a slum boy without an address who wants to go to school. He struggles with getting educated and writing his 7th grade exam at nine years (which can be written only at 13 years) without going to school a single day.

The film was shot in 55 days over 6-8 months and won 11 prestigious international awards. Through this journey there were a lot of challenges. I couldn’t learn things I wanted to like sound engineering and film editing because professional studios couldn’t spare the time to teach me. Lots of people didn’t believe I was directing Care of Footpath at nine, so the press came to the sets to see if I was really directing or if it was just a stunt.

Directing Jackie Dada and Kallu Mama
Directing Jackie dada and Sourabh Shukla-ji was fabulous. They never treated me as a kid, instead they treated me as they would any other film director, especially Jackie dada who would call me chota director. I met Jackie Shroff at an event in Mumbai. After hearing about Care of Footpath he was very touched. He told me that he came from footpaths himself and faced lots of difficulty. Later, he asked me for a role in my film. I thought he was joking, but after I returned to Bangalore, he actually called me and asked, “Kya role diya hai mujhe?” I was shocked. I sat down with my screen writers and we finally decided to give him the role of the Chief Minister in Care of Footpath.
After watching Sathya and seeing Sourabh Shukla play Kallu Mama, I decided that I wanted him in my film. It was a good experience working with such a senior scriptwriter himself and a senior actor with much experience.

Entering the Guinness World Records
Getting into the books of the Guinness World Records was one of the greatest things that happened to me. In 1973, a 13-year-old boy from Netherlands called Sydney Ling was the world’s youngest director of a professionally made feature film. After 33 years, in 2006, I replaced Sydney Ling’s name with mine. I was proud when the name of my motherland, my country, India, was written in the Guinness World Records.
Apart from this, Oprah Winfrey featured me in the top 15 genius children of the world and I was recognized by Singapore Media Corp as one of Asia’s seven genius children.

Master’s Degree at 16
I’m 16 years old and currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Multimedia & Animation from Karnataka State Open University. I’m the first person in Karnataka to be given an age relaxation to directly take up a higher course.
Though I missed more than 50% of my classes, I managed to score 93% in my 10th grade! When I was younger and acting in films, I carried my notes and books to the film-sets and studied during breaks and while travelling. I love studying and my favourite subjects are Mathematics, Science and, of
course, English!

Future Projects
I’m acting in a movie called Teenage which releases this month. It is a high school musical about a teenager’s confusions, attractions, distractions, infatuations and zero solutions. My second film is to start next year and will be in Hindi and English in Stereoscopic 3D, a technology I learnt even before Avatar hit the theatres. After becoming one of India’s first stereographers and studying 3D technology intensively, I want to research and develop holography and optical illusions, which is expected to used in tomorrow’s filmmaking. One of my dreams is to make a superhero movie. There are movies on Spiderman, Superman and Batman, but if we look at Indian mythology, our superheroes were enormous. Even the word Avatar is derived from Sanskrit.

Rapid Fire

Favourite Film: Apollo 13 and Armageddon

Favourite Director: Steven Spielberg

Actors You Want to Direct: Tom Cruise, Johny Depp and Angelina Jolie, Penelope Cruz

Greatest Achievement: I don’t really know

Role Model: Steven Spielberg and dad

Your Dream is To: Win an Oscar one day

Biggest Compliment Received: When Roberto Benigni said he could see the entire world in my eyes!

Early Beginnings

Age 3: Started modelling

Age 4: Acted in his first film

Age 5: Became a playback singer

Age 6: Learnt photo designing on Adobe Photoshop and CorelDraw

Age 7: Learnt sound engineering on softwares such as ProTools

Age 8: Acted in about 24 feature films and more than 300 television episodes. Also learnt film editing on Final Cut Pro

Age 9: Directed his first feature film

Volume 2 Issue 5