NEWS & Updates
November 8, 2012
MOTHER INDIA is an official selection for the 2012 Crown Heights Film Festival, and David had the opportunity to attend the screening on November 3, 2012 in New York City. The film was met with a warm reception, and the Q&A afterwards was quite engaging!
Film festivals are one of the strategic opportunities that we have to share the message of 31 million orphans in India. To this point, we have entered the film in over 20 different film festivals by submitting the full-length documentary and the festival’s entry fee ($50-100). Although many films submit to each festival, it is a great honor to be an “official selection” – and an even greater honor to win a category. (If you’d like to make a tax-deductible donation to help us spread the message of the film, click here to donate.)
Thank you to the Crown Heights Film Festival for the honor of sharing the message of 31 million Indian orphans with those in attendance!
About the Festival
The festival was founded in 2009 with the aim of creating a social forum centred on showcasing a curated selection of exceptional local and international films to visitors, long time residents and newcomers in Crown Heights – a rapidly changing neighborhood navigating a number of socio-economic issues including racial and cultural integration, local business growth, and police presence under “zero tolerance” directives. CHFF believes the community at large, through the medium of film, benefits from a festival that reflects the diversity Crown Heights embodies.
Executive Producer David Trotter at Five Myles - location of the 2012 Crown Heights Film Festival
Executive Producer David Trotter with the founders of the Crown Heights Film Festival - Erin Gleason (left) and Pedro Martí (right)
Category: Film Festivals - Leave Comment
SHARE this:
September 19, 2012
Video Footage & Photos: Cory Hill
Interviewer: Spencer Burke
Photos available on the MOTHER INDIA Facebook page.
Category: Reviews - Leave Comment
SHARE this:
September 14, 2012
Narrated by Grammy Award winner Rebecca St. James, MOTHER INDIA: Life Through the Eyes of the Orphan is a compelling documentary capturing the life and stories of 25 abandoned and orphaned children living along the railway in southern India.
With over 31 million orphans in India, David Trotter and Shawn Scheinoha showed up hoping to find kids who would be willing to trust them enough to show them life through their eyes. What they didn’t expect was to be warmly welcomed by a family of 25 children living along the railway.
Although telling the stories of the kids was their primary focus, David and Shawn were inspired to take action once they met two young siblings, Polayya and Koteswari. Having been forced to beg on behalf of their alcoholic parents, they escaped the abuse by boarding a train and eventually
joining an unlikely ‘family’ of 25 other courageous kids. When presented with a second chance at life by a local children’s home (Harvest India). will the older kids let the two little ones say ‘yes’ to a fresh start?
Follow the adventure as we experience life through the eyes of the orphan.
Buy the DVD
.
Price: $10.00 + $2.50 shipping & handling
Run Time: 49 Minutes • Color • DVD • 2012
English: Stereo Surround • Widescreen (16:9)
Category: How You Can Help - Leave Comment
SHARE this:
September 13, 2012
Orphans’ Plight: New documentary explores life of homeless kids in India.
Reviewed by Mark Moring on September 12, 2012 – click here for original post.
A new documentary about the plight of orphans in India makes its premiere tomorrow in Santa Ana, CA. Mother India: Life Through the Eyes of the Orphan digs fairly deep in its brief 47 minutes, showing both the harrowing and hopeful sides of a group of 25 homeless children — a tiny segment of India’s 31 million orphans — who live together as a “family” along a railway in southern India.
We learn some of their horrific stories — beaten and tortured by parents, abandoned, sold into sex trafficking, and more — and we see their almost unbearable living conditions — sleeping on the streets, living among filth and waste, exposed to the elements, mosquitoes, and evil adults. The children try to sustain themselves by “cleaning” the floors of trains that stop at the station, begging for a few rupees, maybe picking up the equivalent of a dollar on a good day.
They cope by “huffing” on a product that’s a type of correction fluid and passing around dirty syringes found on the ground, injecting whatever is in them — the children didn’t know — just to help alleviate the pain — physical, mental, psychological, spiritual. Several have HIV/AIDS; others carry varying illnesses, malaria likely among them. Several are missing limbs, lost when trying to jump the moving trains. One’s heart breaks for them.
Filmmakers David Trotter and Shawn Scheinoha were most interested in earning the children’s trust so they could tell an unadulterated story, strictly from the orphans’ point of view, and they mostly succeed. It doesn’t feel sensationalistic, voyeuristic, or manipulative. They’re just filming things as they really are.
Astonishingly, some of these kids still hold out hope for a better future, part of that a result of their optimistic leader, a 20-something guy missing a leg who has decided to take the other kids under his wing and protect them as best as he can. But he’s homeless and jobless too, so there’s only so much he can do.
A brighter ray of hope comes through late in the story, giving some of the kids an opportunity for a fresh start. Will they take it? We won’t spoil the ending.
The film is narrated by Christian musician Rebecca St. James and features music from Switchfoot’s Jon Foreman, Sean Watkins, and others.
Mother India is available on DVD, and organizers are also arranging community screenings.
Category: Reviews - Leave Comment
SHARE this:
September 12, 2012
MOTHER INDIA PREMIERE
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13th
Regency South Coast Village Theatre
1561 W Sunflower Ave
Santa Ana, CA 92704
(map)
Doors Open – 6:45pm
Screening – 7:00pm
Come early to take a photo with Suresh Kumar on the “red carpet”
and stick around afterward for a sampling of lite Indian fare!
LIMITED SPACE – FREE TICKET REQUIRED
GET TICKETS NOW
(Donations will be accepted on the night of the premiere
with proceeds benefiting Harvest India children’s homes.)
Category: Harvest India, Video Update - Leave Comment
SHARE this: