Ten thousand children will enact a real-life scene from the life of child prodigy Clint Edmund Joseph. Having drawn tens of thousands of paintings in the less-than-seven years he lived, Clint became a household name even before he knew what fame was. Filmmaker K. Harikumar, who is making a biopic on Clint's life, has recreated one of the last events in the little boy's life — the last painting competition he attended at the Mananchira Maidanam in Kozhikode.
“He was too weak by then and the doctors had advised him not to travel (from Kochi). But Clint wanted to go. Kunjunni Master, who was really fond of Clint, insisted that he goes,” Harikumar says. This was in February 1983, three months before his death. Clint had won the first prize in that competition. M.T. Vasudevan Nair had come to see him. On his way back home, Clint saw a Theyyam performance, which became his next big painting. “Ten thousand children had come for the competition and we decided to recreate that scene in the film. We went to schools and got that many children with a taste for painting. Art director Boban and cinematographer Madhu Ambat did a wonderful job,” he says. The film, starring child actor Alok as Clint and actors Rima Kallingal and Unni Mukundan playing his parents, will release on August 4.
