"Slumdog Millionaire" Director Danny Boyle Buys Home for Boy Actor

Danny Boyle buys new flat for homeless 'Slumdog Millionaire' child star - Yahoo! News UK

Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle and the trust he set up for the
child stars of Slumdog Millionaire have bought a new home for
nine-year-old Azharuddin Ismail, who played the young Salim in the
movie.

The British filmmaker flew out to Mumbai to help after the nine-year-old's family was forced to leave their shanty town when it was demolished.

Danny said he hoped a new home could also be found for Rubina Ali - who was also left homeless after authorities razed her house - before the monsoon rains in June. The £33,000 apartment bought for Azharuddin and his family is near to the boy's school.

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Slumdog filmmakers visit two child stars of 'Slumdog Millionaire'

'Slumdog' filmmakers meet poor kid stars in Mumbai - Yahoo! News

MUMBAI, India – The makers of "Slumdog Millionaire" met the film's two impoverished child stars on Wednesday and reassured them they will soon have new homes. But the father of one of the children stormed out, saying the filmmakers have not done enough to help.

Rubina Ali, 9, and Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, 10, both lost their homes this month after city authorities demolished parts of their slum in Mumbai. Rubina has been staying with relatives and Azhar has been living in a makeshift shanty of tarps and blankets with his parents.

"We've been trying for a long time to move them into legal accommodation," director Danny Boyle told reporters at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences on the outskirts of Mumbai, where he and producer Christian Colson met the children and their families.

Relations between the filmmakers and the children's families have grown tense since the phenomenal success of the film, which grossed more than $326 million.

The filmmakers set up a trust aimed at ensuring the children get proper homes, a decent education, a monthly stipend and a nest egg when they finish high school. They have pledged to spend up to $100,000 to buy the two families new apartments and have donated $747,500 to a charity to help slum children across Mumbai.

Colson has described the trust as substantial, but will not tell anyone how much it contains — not even the children's parents — for fear of making the youngsters vulnerable to exploitation.

Nirja Mattoo, who helps oversee the children's trust, said a new home has been found for Azhar's family near to his school and neighborhood. "We are finalizing the deal. Next week it should be done," she said.

The hunt for Rubina's house continues, she added.

But Rafiq Qureshi, Rubina's father, said Boyle has not done enough.

"It's no big deal for them, this kind of money. It's been five or six months we've been living in such difficulty. They should help us," he said in an interview after he cut the meeting short in anger.

"After the Oscars they forgot about us," he added. "For two months we didn't get any money."

Mattoo declined to comment on Qureshi's behavior.

"We're trying our best to get it (a house) as soon as possible," she said by phone.

Boyle said he planned to make two more films set in Mumbai.

'Slumdog' director, producer committed to getting child stars out of slums

Source: EW.com

After rubbing elbows with Brangelina at the Oscars, Slumdog Millionaire's Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Ismail enjoyed a hero's homecoming in the Mumbai slums. But soon after came grim reports of their struggle to readjust to a place where sewage runs unchecked and electricity is a luxury. One story described ­Ismail, 10, getting slapped by his father for ­refusing to speak to reporters. Ali, 9, was photographed in her muddy Oscar gown, standing near heaps of ­refuse. In Los Angeles, "we lived in very beautiful hotels," she told People magazine recently. "I have got used to...[that] kind of life."

None of this is lost on producer Christian Colson and director Danny Boyle, who set up trust funds for the kids and paid for their schooling after the film wrapped. "It's a really difficult situation that's spiraling out of control," Colson tells EW. "We've had to constantly reevaluate the challenge of: If you want to lift people out of poverty, how the hell do you do that?" According to him, the children's parents rejected the filmmakers' offer to move them from their makeshift shacks into proper apartments, demanding instead payment in cash. "Nothing would be easier than to throw money at this," says Colson. "But we felt from the beginning that that would be irresponsible." So he and Boyle (with input from the film's U.S. distributor Fox Searchlight) have hired local Indian social workers to help negotiate a solution that will relocate the families into safe and clean housing. Colson can't say how soon they'll resolve the matter, but he promises he won't quit until they do. "We are committed to this," he says. "We'll still be on this in two or three years. And you can hold me to account on that."

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Oscars Recap Showcasing Big Wins for 'Slumdog Millionaire'

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India claims 'Slumdog Millionaire' as its own

AFP: 'Slumdog Millionaire' director coy about Oscar success

MUMBAI (AFP) — "Slumdog Millionaire" director Danny Boyle said Tuesday he is refusing to contemplate Oscar success, despite a string of accolades, as he returned to Mumbai for the film's Indian premiere.

"The most important thing for us this week is absolutely the opening here. Big time. That's serious," he told a news conference in the city alongside the hit movie's cast.

The rags-to-riches love story about a Mumbai slum dweller has been tipped for Academy Awards success after scooping four US Golden Globes earlier this month, including a best director award for Boyle.

The low-budget movie, made with virtual unknowns in the lead roles, has taken 40 million dollars at the US box office and more than six million pounds (8.4 million dollars) in Britain, its producer Christian Colson said.

It premieres in Mumbai Thursday and Indian audiences get the chance to see the film from Friday, both in the original English and in Hindi as "Slumdog Crorepati".

Boyle, whose credits include "Shallow Grave", "Trainspotting" and "28 Days Later", said he felt "incredibly blessed" by how the film has been received across the world, including the host of awards it has won.

"You can't expect anything really. You should always expect to get knocked down by a bus tomorrow morning, which is the only healthy thing to feel about success. It could all end at a moment's notice," he added.

"We have just been very fortunate to be where we are and... I never thought we would be here."

India has claimed "Slumdog Millionaire" as its own after the film's Golden Globes success and is eagerly awaiting next month's Oscars, despite it being directed, written and produced by a group of Britons and a British studio.

The cast, co-director Loveleen Tandan, acclaimed music director A.R. Rahman and the Vikas Swarup's novel "Q and A" on which the film is based are all Indian, as is the location -- Mumbai's sprawling Dharavi shantytown.

There is also a part-Hindi dialogue, Bollywood singing and dancing and some of the Indian film industry's biggest stars, Anil Kapoor and Irfan Khan.

"There's probably nowhere more important than releasing the film in Mumbai and this extraordinary city," Boyle told reporters.

But he brushed aside apparent criticism of the film's subject matter from Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan, who wrote on his personal website recently that dire poverty exists in every culture, not just in India.

The comments were interpreted by the Indian media as a slight on Western directors and their perceptions of the country, although Bachchan has denied he was being critical of Boyle's success.

Boyle said he and screenplay writer Simon Beaufoy wanted to include "as much of the city as possible that we saw and found. And there are some tough things and there are some extraordinary things", he said.

He accepted that his vision of India's "Maximum City" was not perfect but he hoped audiences would recognise the "breathtaking resilience" and lust for life of the Mumbaikars depicted in the film, despite their circumstances.

"Everybody has the privilege of saying whatever they want about it (the film). I think it's part of my job to accept criticism," he added.

Slumdog Millionaire

'Slumdog Millionaire' nominated for 10 Oscars at the 81st Annual Academy Awards

British director Danny Boyle's hit film "Slumdog Millionaire" has won 10 Oscar nominations, three of them for Indian musician maestro A R Rahman for his original score and two songs composed by him.

He got the nomination for two songs composed by him "O Saya" and "Jai Ho". The film also was nominated in the sound editing and sound mixing categories.

The full list of nominations for Slumdog are:

• Best Picture: "Slumdog Millionaire"
• Best Director: Danny Boyle
• Adapted screenplay: Simon Beaufoy
• Music (Score): AR Rehman
• Music (Song): "Jai Ho" and "O Saya"
  
• Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle
• Film editing: Chris Dickens
• Sound editing: Tom Sayers
• Sound mixing: Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, Resul Pookutty

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