Raju (film)

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Movie
Original title Raju
Country of production Germany , India
original language German
Publishing year 2010
length 24 minutes
Rod
Director Max count
script Max Count
Florian Kuhn
production Stefan Gieren
music Florian Tessloff
camera Sin huh
cut Max count
occupation

Raju is a German-Indian short film by Max Zähle from 2010. It deals with the illegal child trafficking in India, which is flourishing as a result of well-meaning adoptions from Western countries . The film has been shown at over 150 festivals around the world and has won over 40 international awards. At the 38th Student Academy Awards ("Student Oscar") 2011, Raju was awarded the bronze medal in the Foreign Film category. In 2012 Raju was nominated for the Academy Award (Oscar) in the Best Short Film category.

action

The married couple Jan and Sarah Fischer, played by Wotan Wilke Möhring and Julia Richter , travel from Germany to Calcutta in order to choose an orphan . A local orphanage was recommended to them by the German authorities . There the four-year-old boy Raju , from a slum , played by Krish Gupta, is introduced to them and given to them. When the child suddenly disappears during an excursion and the Indian police get stuck with their investigation, Jan himself begins an intensive search. Gradually the couple realized that they were not helping to solve a problem as intended, but part of a problem: Because the child is not an orphan, but was taken from its birth parents in order to sell it to well-meaning, comparatively wealthy parents in Western countries .

background

Raju is the graduation film by three students from the Hamburg Media School , Max Zähle, Sin Huh and Stefan Gieren. Director Zähle came up with the idea for the film after the severe earthquake in Haiti in 2010 , which resulted in numerous foreign adoptions, some of which were dubious. In an interview, he named the actions of a Christian American organization that went through the media as an explicit trigger.

The first contacts to India were made by Professor Insa Sjurts and Hubertus Meyer-Burckhardt as part of a cooperation between the Hamburg Media School and the Roopkala Kendro film school in Calcutta, which has existed since 2010 . The making of the film was accompanied by Professor Richard Reitinger , Head of the Film Course at the Hamburg Media School. The team was supported in the subject research by the children's aid organization terre des hommes . The study project received financial help from the Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein Film Fund . It was realized with a very low budget. The two German leading actors, who agreed on the basis of the draft script, as well as most of the employees waived a fee.

The ten German team was then on site in Calcutta for a good two months, supported by an Indian crew of around 50 people. Various difficulties arose, such as monsoon rainy season , cultural differences, problems with local authorities and the equipment, which required certain improvisation. For the ten days of shooting, the two main actors were flown in the day before. During the shooting, the film team was accompanied by two journalists from The Times of India newspaper . These then covertly researched and published a report that led to political consequences in India. Two dubious children's homes were closed and politicians were about to resign. As a consequence of the problem of child trafficking, the film crew, on the initiative of the production designer in the team, Hans Tillmann, founded an aid organization in Calcutta, "We help children in Kolkata", which supports the education of slum children in the country without taking them out of their culture tear. Their brand ambassador is the actress Taranjit Kaur from Calcutta, who plays in the film.

The Super 16 film was shot with an Arriflex camera using the CinemaScope method in a format ratio of 1: 2.35. The 2K scan was exposed to 35 mm .

The working title of the film was Kolkata , the final title was initially City of Joy (like the film of the same name by Roland Joffé from 1992).

Awards, nominations and performances (selection)

The film premiered on January 20, 2011 at the short film competition of the 32nd Max-Ophüls-Preis film festival in Saarbrücken. It was also shown in the Short Film Corner at the 64th Cannes Film Festival in 2011 and at numerous other national and international festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival in January 2012 . In 2011 Raju was nominated for the First Steps , but ultimately did not receive the award.

In December 2011 the film - as one of 10 out of a total of 107 submissions in the Live Action Shorts category (non-animated short films) - made it onto the shortlist for the nominations for Best Short Film at the 2012 Academy Awards . On January 24, 2012, AMPAS nominated the film as one of five candidates for this Oscar. Ultimately, however, Raju had to admit defeat to his Irish competitor The Shore .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Raju Goes to Cannes , The Indian Express, May 9, 2011
  2. ↑ a b “A wonderful feedback”: Max Zähle on the student “Oscar” and his film “Raju” , Deutschlandradio Kultur , May 29, 2011
  3. ↑ For more information on the case, see the article in the English Wikipedia , as well as the press reports “This is robbery, not adoption” , Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 31, 2010 and Haiti's children as an export commodity , the daily newspaper , February 17, 2010
  4. ^ Entry on Raju at crew united
  5. ↑ Hamburg filmmakers win student Oscar , Hamburger Abendblatt , May 17, 2011
  6. ↑ Will 'Raju' be another 'Slumdog'? , The Times of India , May 9, 2011
  7. ↑ Timo Landsiedel: Let chance in the picture: German short film was made in Calcutta on Super 16. In: Zoom - Das Magazin der Filemacher , H. 04/2011, P. 12f.
  8. ↑ Acceptance speech by Max Zähle (video)
  9. ↑ Website at the Short Film Corner  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.shortfilmcorner.com  
  10. ^ Two German Hopes for Short Film Oscar , Schwäbische Zeitung Online, December 15, 2011
  11. ↑ First Steps Nominations 2011
  12. ↑ Press release of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: 10 Live Action Shorts Advance in Oscar® Race , December 14, 2011
  13. ↑ Max Zähle has a chance of an Oscar , Hamburger Morgenpost, December 15, 2011
  14. ↑ Press release of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: Nominees for the 84th Academy Awards , January 24, 2012
  15. ↑ Hamburg Media School press release: Waiting for Oscar ( Memento of the original from March 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , January 24, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hamburgmediaschool.com