Siddharth

by Richie Mehta

India, Canada

Director : Richie Mehta 

Script : Richie Mehta

Photographer : Bob Gundu

Editing : Richie Mehta, Stuart A. McIntyre

Sound : Lait Malik 

Music : Andrew Lockington  

Actors : Rajesh Tailang, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Anurag Arora, Shobha Sharma Jassi, Geeta Agrawal, Amitabh Srivasta 

Production : A71 Productions, Poor Man's, Productions Ltd. 

Distributor : 

Year : 2013

Screening : 2023

DCP, Color, 96 mn, OV hindi SUBFR

When he sends Siddharth, his 12-year-old son, to work illegally in Mumbai, Mahendra, his father, a door-to-door bag repairman, is financially better off. But when Siddharth does not return home for Diwali as he is supposed to, Mahendra fears that he might have been kidnapped by child traffickers. With no money and no network of acquaintances to fall back on, he travels across India looking for his son, hoping that he will come back to him safe and sound. “I go to India three or four times a year. It’s a place where I’m extremely observant of people and places for my work, but also whenever I have a chance meeting with someone. You need to be open to the world around you... It’s easy for western spectators to reject this world which seems like a different planet to them. One of my aims is to show that links, connections, exist between these two very unalike worlds. And if I can find a way to link the life of a door-to-door repairman to that of a banker in Toronto, I will have had the feeling that I’ve accomplished something.” Richie Mehta, Canadian director of Indian origin, born in Ontario