Kerala filmmaker’s take on climate change a hit at Copenhagen

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - Kerala filmmaker Arun Bose’s one-minute documentary ‘My Paper Boat’ about a boy who uses a string to drag a paper boat on a dry surface to drive home to the world the ill-effects of climate change was screened every day at the Copenhagen summit, the director said.

An ecstatic Bose, who received a cash prize of 1,000 pounds for the film, told IANS over the telephone from Chennai that everything happened in a jiffy.

”My one-minute film was selected as the winner among 174 films from across the globe in the ‘One Minute to Save the World 2009′ competition. I was told that on all days of the Summit, it was being shown on a screen which was a cube and placed in the middle of a lake. This made me even happier,” he quipped.

Twenty seven-year-old Bose said about two months ago, he was invited by the British Council to make the one-minute film.

”The spark came from the fact that I have been a short film and documentary filmmaker for the past three years and was fresh from a half-an-hour documentary that I made on the 100 years of drought in two villages of Orissa. Soon my friends Sachin, Kiran and Deepu decided to do ‘My Paper Boat’,” said Bose, who is now waiting for his visa to go to the Britain to do an MA in film studies at the University of Newcastle.

”My friends and the seven-year-old who played the role in the film went to a dry lake in Chennai’s Velacheri and the entire filming was done in 45 minutes. We headed home and by evening, the one-minute film was ready. It was shot using a friend’s mini DVD handycam and the entire film costed us Rs 2,000,” said Bose.

Bose, who hails from Muvattupuzha in Ernakulam district, entered the world of filmmaking after his B.Sc in Computer Studies and Masters in Communication from the Madras Christian College.

”My passion is to make films which can be used as an education tool, one for the community and not the usual commercial films. I have done a short film on the tribes of Gond in Orissa,” said Bose.

He has by now made 10 short films, five documentaries and been an assistant director to leading Kerala ad-filmmaker A.K.Vinod.