Ashvin Kumar’s docu-drama, Little Terrorist, finds itself within reach of the Oscar statuette with a coveted nomination for Best Short Film

The silence of the darkened room is broken by an incessant guffaw of a child, and the ‘at attention’ posse of press breaks into a smile at the unpredictable end to India’s representation at the Academy Awards. Ashvin Kumar’s nibble of the Oscar pie has catapulted him into the big league of small film-makers who are gradually gaining a foothold in the august shadow cast by that towering mountain called Bollywood. Little Terrorist, a 15-minute short film, has garnered that very coveted and always elusive Oscar nomination – perceived by Indians as that final recognition of cinematic brilliance – in the Best Short Film (Live Action) category. Kumar’s journey into the hallowed halls of Oscar history was totally unexpected, as all good things generally are. “Three days before the final nominations were made, I got a call from the people at the Academy asking for prints of Little Terrorist. Needless to say, I was a little dumbstruck. But the kind of exposure that the film received through the Montreal Film Festival and the consequent award that it won, really thrust it into the limelight, and me along with it,” discloses the director, producer and scriptwriter.

The 15-minute venture is about a Pakistani boy who chases his cricket ball beyond the boundaries into enemy territory triggering off a barrage of gunfire from the Indian battalion manning the front. Peppered with nuggets of unforgettable scenes, like the plate-breaking ritual performed by Bhola, the Brahmin, and his niece, steeped in convention, juxtaposed against the risks that they take in sheltering a Pakistani child in their midst, or the final scene of a relieved mother venting her worry and anxiety in a sound thrashing of the boy who returns home late at night, the film focuses on that undying spirit of humanity that has been lost in the maelstrom of vituperative verbal volleys flying back and forth between the two nations.