Archive - 10th Five Flavours Film Festival

Salaam Bombay!

India 1988, 113’
subtitles: Polish and English
director: Mira Nair
screenplay: Mira Nair, Sooni Taraporevala
cinematography: Sandi Sissel
editing: Barry Alexander Brown
music: L. Subramaniam
cast: Shafiq Syed, Hansa Vithal, Chanda Sharma, Raghuvir Yadav, Anita Kanwar, Nana Patekar, Irrfan Khan
producer: Mira Nair, Gabriel Auer
production: Cadrage, Channel Four Films, Doordarshan, Forum Films, La Sept Cinéma, Mirabai Films, National Film Development Corporation of India
language: Hindi
colouration: colour

Awards and festivals

Cannes FF 1988 - Audience Award, Golden Camera; National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi 1988; National Film Award for Best Child Artist 1988; National Board of Review Awards 1988 - Top Foreign Film; Los Angeles Women in FF 1988 - Lilian Gish Award Excellence in Feature Film; Montréal World FF 1988 - Most Popular Film, Jury Prize, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury

Film description

The little Krishna works in a circus to repay his brother for a motorbike he set on fire in a fit of anger. When the circus drives away, leaving him alone and penniless, the desperate boy walks to the nearest town. There he gets into trouble, again, confronted with the brutal reality of the urban melting pot. Step by step, he begins to find his own place in the complex structures of the social margin. Prostitutes, drug addicts and beggars become his new family.

This mile stone in the career of Mira Nair, then a documentary filmmaker, is a complex portrait of street life, shown with all its cruelty but also with the warmth the boy finds in relationships with others, equally wronged characters. The director's social sensitivity makes the stories she shows extremely authentic. Before shooting the film, she spent a lot of time working with children from the streets – some of them became a part of her cast. The young actors brought spontaneous energy to the film, and their own stories were introduced into the script. After she finished shooting, Nair started a foundation supporting the abandoned children of the Indian cities.

Jagoda Murczyńska

Mira Nair

Award-winning director, one of the strongest voices of her generation. She studied sociology at New Delhi University and Harvard, began her film career by making documentaries. In 1988, she received the Caméra d'Or at Cannes IFF for "Salaam Bombay!", and thirteen years later she won the Golden Lion in Venice for "Monsoon Wedding." Her production studio, Mirabai Films, specializes in social cinema. Currently she lives in New York, working as a filmmaker and academic. Her recent film, "Queen of Katwe," shot in Uganda, premiered in September 2016 at Toronto IFF.

Selected filmography:

1979 Jama Street Masjid Journal (dok.)

1982 So Far From India (dok.)

1988 Salaam Bombay!

1981 Mississippi Masala

1996 Kamasutra / Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love

2001 Monsunowe wesele / Monsoon Wedding

2004 Vanity Fair. Targowisko próżności / Vanity Fair

2009 Amelia Earhart / Amelia

2012 Uznany za fundamentalistę / The Reluctant Fundamentalist

2016 Queen of Katwe

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