Chennai boy’s short film selected for Copenhagen meet

A youngster from Chennai has done the city proud by bagging the top prize at a recent short film making contest. His film has now made it to the selection of movies being screened at the Copenhagen Climate Conference between December 7 and 18.
Arun Bose S, a former student of MCC, made a one-minute movie called My Paper Boat, which was judged the best film at an international short film competition called ‘1 Minute to Save the World.’
Arun’s film, which is an account of a young child losing out on his playground owing to global warming, is a forewarning of the bigger catastrophes lying ahead for the planet.
Speaking about the film, slated to be shown on an international channel that will telecast the proceedings of the Copenhagen summit, Arun says, “I was informed about this competition by the British Council and I thought, why not give it a go. We shot the film at a dried-up lake near Velachery and one of our neighbour’s kids played the protagonist. I did not imagine in my wildest dreams that I would be selected as the winner. It was only later on, when my buddies informed me that my film was short-listed, that I realised the enormity of the news.”
He adds, “My experiences working with an NGO called National Folklore Support Centre proved inspirational in telling my story. For instance, there are these villages in Orissa that have been hit by drought for several years. Global warming has only compounded their worries. Our film is a metaphor for the potential displacement of people due to climate change in various parts of the country. One of my friends, Deepu Charles, helped me conceptualise the film, while two others, Sachin and Kiran, assisted me in the production.”
So how does this young man plan on utilising his prize money of a thousand pounds? Arun responds, “I plan on distributing the prize among my collaborators on this project and saving up some of it for future films.”