After rubbing elbows with Brangelina at the Oscars, Slumdog Millionaire’s Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Ismail enjoyed a hero’s homecoming in the Mumbai slums. But soon after came grim reports of their struggle to readjust to a place where sewage runs unchecked and electricity is a luxury. One story described Ismail, 10, getting slapped by his father for refusing to speak to reporters. Ali, 9, was photographed in her muddy Oscar gown, standing near heaps of refuse. In Los Angeles, “we lived in very beautiful hotels,” she told People magazine recently. “I have got used to…[that] kind of life.”
None of this is lost on producer Christian Colson and director Danny Boyle, who set up trust funds for the kids and paid for their schooling after the film wrapped. “It’s a really difficult situation that’s spiraling out of control,” Colson tells EW. “We’ve had to constantly reevaluate the challenge of: If you want to lift people out of poverty, how the hell do you do that?” According to him, the children’s parents rejected the filmmakers’ offer to move them from their makeshift shacks into proper apartments, demanding instead payment in cash. “Nothing would be easier than to throw money at this,” says Colson. “But we felt from the beginning that that would be irresponsible.” So he and Boyle (with input from the film’s U.S. distributor Fox Searchlight) have hired local Indian social workers to help negotiate a solution that will relocate the families into safe and clean housing. Colson can’t say how soon they’ll resolve the matter, but he promises he won’t quit until they do. “We are committed to this,” he says. “We’ll still be on this in two or three years. And you can hold me to account on that.”
The casting director and Danny should adopt the kids, just take them away from the greedy parents. These two are the only ones complaining. The producers don’t owe them anything more. This is like when Oprah a few years ago tried to lift people out of poverty; she threw millions of dollars into trying to help 5 women in Chicago and only one succeeded in the program. Once you’re there it’s harder than heck to get out of it. You say you want to do better, but it’s easier said than done.
IMO boyle has done all he can. He should just walk away, the parents are blackmailers. They and the kids keep crying about more more money more money. To heck with them! Danny, next time hire professional child actors.
EW: You need to have a “report abuse” button next to these messages, so we can report abuse like the idiot that just posted a message.
I can’t understand why the producers did not stipulate in the payment contract that the kids would be moved into decent housing instead of merely sending them to school while they continue to live in squalor not fit for any living being.
There too many children and people to save. It’s impossible to save them all. The war against poverty has been going on for decades with no end in sight. The slums are their life, their future, they had a few good weeks in America, going to Disneyland and staying in nice hotels, but it’s back to reality now, I’m afraid. Filmmakers can’t change their ENTIRE culture. Wish it was that easy.
I don’t think the filmmakers have a responsibility to end poverty in India, but they absolutely have a responsibility to these kids who performed lead roles in their hit movie. What reasons have the parents given for refusing the apartments? And how were the children compensated for their roles in the first place (besides tuition being paid)?
Its vivicious life cycle of living in poverty. Their parents might have been living in that situation. For them it might be having a elephant when you dont have reliable source of earning.
With Flat comes all the bills monthly electricity, water and also social status and they can’t do whatever jobs theiy are doing right now to have food daily which recycling garbabge etc.
Indian goct have tried removing slums and giving everyone decent flats to live in but these people protest and sometime even rent those places and keep living in same place.
These kids have tasted the other life in real and it is frustating for them.
I truely admire Danny Bolye & producer to give these kids this chance. I was even touched by Danny spending day with kids at beach after most glorius day of his whole career. He could have gone to partying with high profile people to build career network for himself.
He did the right thing to setup trust instead of giving money if one has experience of seeing slums.
its clear that the parents are looking to line their own pockets with the cash, which is why i think it was a good idea to create a trust fund instead so that parents don’t go out and blow the kids money.
on the other hand, its not the director’s responsibility to care for these kids from now on. these kids were only actors in a movie, they were not adopted by the directors. the parents of these kids should understand that.
Would have been nice if there was some concept of CPS in India, where the children could be held in custody (that provides for a safe home, education) until the parents are able to do so. Now I know why Indians look the other way. As someone reported, they try to help, but most cases, the help is refused. They cannot live in the apartments as they are not educated to pay the bills and run the house. Also they want the cycle to continue. They don’t understand the concept of education and effort.
This is about changing the minds of the parents. They had the little boys father in the news before the Oscars saying they hadn’t been paid enough. He has TB and has used up all the cash the boy was paid. He is sick, has never done anything in his life and now his son is “rich” by their standards and famous. It was a disaster bound to happen. If he were really concerned about his son he would have taken the apartment and moved, because it is not just about the cash. It is about his child’s safety. They are already reporting that the family is being harassed by “gangsters.” Money isn’t gonna help this situation. This is no different from a NY ghetto, or what happened to a lot of child actors in the 70′s and 80′s. The parents think they are entitled to the money and they just want to use the child.
Colson and Boyle aren’t obligated to indefinitely support the families. But, judging from the reaction to this topic—including over 300,000 hits on one of the blogs—it seems that all people want is for them to buy the flats they first promised the kids. Both filmmakers seem like genuinely nice men who should do the decent thing by quickly following this all the way through to its rightful conclusion. Two children in a movie whose worldwide box office is $200 million shouldn’t have to live in squalor a day longer.
I think This is a very delictae situation. Giving $$$ to the parents will NOT guarantee it trickling down to the children. They cannot be trusted with it. Western sensabilities
will not understand it. Children in the slums and many other levels are Chattals. I hope the producers stay on top of this problem.
Another point I dont understand is WHY? India is claiming this film as an
Indian Film. Its a british film and it used Indian cast and location to stay true to the story…Its ART…
Gee whiz, Danny, maybe you should have avoided the whole mess in the first place by, oh, I don’t know, hiring REAL ACTORS instead of kids off the street. Charity and fantasy don’t mix. Make your dumb, jittery, short-attention-span films, but keep your social-pocketbook inclinations separate. What a miserable, utterly avoidable mess. But if you thought before you did anything, you wouldn’t be Danny Boyle, now, would you…?
Another Kim, stop masturbating to Clint Eastwood and pay attention. Stop that.
I doubt that most of the people commenting about the parents of these children have ever been to Mumbai, or seen the slums, or experienced such extreme and pervasive poverty. It’s easy to blame the parents but that just shows how utterly privileged and ignorant those posters are about the reality of life for these children, their families, and, a huge portion of the population of Mumbai, and beyond that, of India, and of the world. The film has already made more than enough money (and it hasn’t even gone to DVD yet) for these children to be given proper homes, schooling, AND large sums of money for their families. The amount of money this would require is tiny by Western standards. There is NO excuse for them returning to the slums to live in filth after the Oscars. None. There’s nothing to debate.
I think very few of the non-Indian posters realize how small a sum of money is required to lift this family out of poverty. $100 a month will let them live in dignity, $200 a month will put them in the Indian lower middle-class. An fund of $30,000 will yield this level of income. The father asked for the amount of the airfare to Hollywood be given to them in cash when the producers first raised the idea of flying the kids out to L.A.. This was a very sensible and modest request. Short noticeair tickets for flying the two little kids to L.A. from Mumbai for the Oscars likely cost $15,000-25,000… Don’t demonize the father. He is doing his best raising the kid under impossible circumstances. Tuberculosis and living under a tarpaulin? Come on folks, there’s every indication that the parents are heroes for raising personable kids with odds such as these.Responsible trust conservators, lawyers and NGOs are hardly rarities in Mumbai.Hopefully, Danny Boyle and Co. will do the right thing.