Student Speak: World’s Youngest Director

Guinness World Record holder Kishan Srikanth 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

All child actors on the set would be engaged for several hours (about 2-3 hours) rest of the time, when my co-child actors would play around in the set. I was curious about the Camera, the lights and how film works. This curiosity made me go and ask each and every crew on the set about various things, right from a light boy to the cinematographer, the film director. 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 or my parents guessed that I would end up a film director at the age of nine.

WHY FILMMAKING?

One day, when I was with my dad in the car, we stopped by a traffic signal. I saw street children who were selling newspapers and toys on the roads. I thought “why shouldn’t they go to school like us, because every child in India has a right to get educated”. My dad told that they don’t strive hard to earn their food, they would not survive.

This made me feel that, when at 8 years, I would act in films/tv soaps and could go to school and score above 90 per cent so why can’t they go to school and sell newspapers? I realised that they need some inspiration, motivation and thought films is a very good medium to educate them and I started writing a small story. I developed it further and when the screenplay for the movie was, I realised that it could be made into a feature film.

THE 9-YEAR-OLD FILMMAKER

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

The film was shot for 55 days over a span of 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 time to teach me. Lots of people didn’t believe I was directing Care of Footpath at 9 years, so the press came to the sets to really see if I was 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 nine-year-old, instead they treated me as they would any other film director. Especially Jackie dada would call me chota director. I met Jackie Shroff in 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 just joking and after coming back to Bangalore, he actually called me and asked me “kya role diya hai mujhe?” I was really shocked and then sat down with my screen writers and finally we decided to give him the role of the Chief Minister in Care of Footpath.

After watching Sathya and seeing Sourabh Shukla playing ‘Kallu Mama’ in that movie, 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 impeccable experience.

ENTERING THE GUINNESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS

Getting into the books of the Guinness World Records was one of the greatest things that happened to me. In 1973, a thirteen 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 by mine was not something that gave me courage. It was the pride I had when Netherlands was wiped off and the name of my motherland, my country, India was written in the books of the Guinness World Records.

Apart from this, Oprah Winfrey featured me among Top 15 genius children of the world and I was recognized by Singapore Media Corp as one of Asia’s 7 genius children.

TEENAGE: STARRING KISHAN

Teenage, releasing this month, is a high school musical film about a teenager’s confusions, attractions, distractions, infatuations and zero solutions. The film stars me, Tanvi Lonkar (who acted in Slumdog Millionaire as the middle-aged ‘Latika’ in riga riga ringa), Apoorva Arora (who recently was starred in Oh My God), Priya Bharat Khanna (England born Australian-Indian model and actress) and Giorgia Valenti (Italian model). The movie has been directed by my father Shrikanth HR.

The movie is entering the Limca book of world record by making the world’s first underwater film song (a 4 minute song completely shot underwater). It’s making into the Guinness books (again) as about 20,000 teenagers danced in about 20 locations across Karnataka for a song from Teenage.

MASTER’S DEGREE AT 16

I’m 16 years old and I’m currently pursuing my Master of Arts (M.A. 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 at a younger age.

Though I would miss more than 50 per cent of my classes, I managed to score 93 per cent in my 10th grade! When I was young and acting in films, I used to carry my notes and books to the film-sets and study during breaks and while travelling. I love studying and my favourite subjects are mathematics, science and of course English!

INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION

I’ve met a lot of people, notable people… One of them is Roberto Benigni, the Oscar Award-Winning Film Director, Actor, and Writer. Years ago, I loved his movie La vita Bella that’s Life is Beautiful. When my film was selected at a film festival in Giffoni, South Italy which is called or known as the “Children’s Oscars”, I just told the press I wanted to meet him. His publicist called me and arranged transportation to get me to Florence and meet him. He told me he could see the entire world in my eyes, he liked me very much. His words were inspiring, especially because he is such an experienced person.

FUTURE PROJECT

I am acting in a movie called Teenage, which is releases this month; it is a high school musical film about a teenager’s confusions, attractions, distractions, infatuations and zero solutions. My second film is to start around next year in Hindi and English in Stereoscopic 3D, a technology which I learnt even before Avatar saw the theatres. After being one of India’s first stereographer and studying 3D technology intensively, I want to pursue research and development on Holography and Optical Illusions, which people expect to be the cutting edge technology in tomorrow’s film-making.

One of my dreams is to make a super hero movie. People have made movies like Spiderman, Superman, Batman, but if we just turn around and look back to the Indian mythology, our super heroes were enormous. Even the word Avatar is derived from Sanskrit.

ON THE SETS

Many funny incidents took place during the filming of Care of Footpath such incidents. We decided to shoot the film in an actual slum as we wanted a natural setting for the film. Some of the residents from the slumused to return home in the mornings under the influence of alcohol. Once, we were shooting a sequence between me and Saurabh Shukhla. In the middle of the scene, someone screamed “Cut!”. Surabh Shukla was upset because the scene was going well, but we couldn’t identify who was giving these instructions. After this happened a couple of more times, we realised it was one of the residents from the slum who was screaming these orders!

A WORD OF ADVICE

I feel that people should have a dream and work hard towards accomplishing it. After visiting countries across the world, I’ve learnt that children often start learning acting, editing, filmmaking, gymnastics, dance, etc from the age of 8. I think India should start nurturing young talent as well. Also, one needs to work hard and success doesn’t come overnight. With respect to the films being made in India, I feel that filmmakers should offer audiences more variety. They generally tend to stick to the current trend; for example if sports films are doing well, there will be a number of films made on the same subject in the same year. I think we should be more diverse in our films like Hollywood.

Favourite Film: I’ve got too many… aah Apollo 13 and Armageddon

Favourite Director: Steven Spielberg

Actors you want to direct: Tom Cruise/Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie/Penelope Cruz

Greatest achievement: i dont really know….

Role Model: Steven Spielberg and dad

Your dream is to… win an Oscar one day

Biggest compliment you’ve received: when Roberto Benigni said he can 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