Midway through Sthanarthi Sreekuttan, a Malayalam movie headed by children of 11 and 12 years, two groups of schoolboys play a cricket match to decide the custody of a bench, much valued for not having shaky legs. All through the thrilling moments of the game, a little boy takes it upon himself to offer commentary loaded with wit, shrills of excitement, and mimicking popular commentators. It was nothing short of pure entertainment. Unfortunately, neither he (Karthik Prithvi), nor any of the other little boys and girls in the film, shot in an upper primary school in rural Thiruvananthapuram, were deemed worthy of winning the Kerala State Award for Best Child Artist this year.
Not just the actors of Sthanarthi Sreekuttan, but no child from any of the 128 films including the six children’s films submitted for the 2024 Awards were chosen in the Best Child Artist category. This is the first time, since the Kerala State Awards were constituted in 1969, that such an omission has taken place. The Best Children’s Film has, however, been skipped many times before.
Speaking after the announcement of the awards, jury chairperson and renowned actor Prakash Raj said that they did not find a single attempt to make a children’s film worthy of an award. “With great humility, we request the film fraternity to please think of making children’s films and write roles for children. Writers and directors should realise that it is not just elders or youth but children too who form an important part of society. What they think, understand, and what constitutes their world has to be made into cinema. None of the films [this year] talked about children’s perception. A few of the child artists were not speaking their age, they were just props,” Prakash Raj commented, opening a can of worms.
Long posts condemning his words were published, and opinions shared on prime time television on why the remarks were unfair. Filmmakers and artistes appreciated the jury’s prerogative, but decried the words they used, especially the refusal to mention a single child actor from all the films.
“You could have awarded or at least mentioned a relatively good performance. By not honouring anyone, you have denied the opportunity to a number of young artistes. When they lose these rare chances, the sorrow and pain is huge. You could have mentioned your criticism that children's films and actors lacked quality, but still chose the best among them,” wrote Arun Sol, photographer, actor, and the father of Thanmaya Sol, one of the contestants for the child actor award for her performance in Iruniram. She won the award in 2022 for the film Vazhakku.
Thanmaya’s sister Thammanna too grew up in films, making a short when she was in class 7, and featuring it in the second edition of the International Children’s Film Festival of Kerala in 2019. However, the festival, put together by the Kerala State Council for Child Welfare and the Kerala Chalachithra Academy, stopped in 2020 owing to COVID-19, and never resumed.
A children’s film festival was conducted by the government’s Samagra Siksha Keralam (SSK) in 2023 at all government and government-aided schools, but with the funds blocked for SSK later on, the festival was discontinued. In the last two years, another festival was put together in Thrissur by a number of organisations, with the support of the Kerala Chalachithra Academy.
No space for children’s films
Like the children’s film festival, other attempts to promote cinema for children have also not managed to stay afloat. “The lack of attention given to children’s films is because they have never been economically viable. Earlier we had the Children's Film Society India, which produced children's films and television programmes. But in 2022, it was merged with the National Film Development Corporation,” said film critic GP Ramachandran.
Arun Sol raised the bigger question, on why the quality of children's films is lacking. “There is no space to screen children's films here, there is no income from it, and no theatre to release them. So producers are not keen on making these films. Most of these are low budget films made by those who know they won't get any returns, but still do it for the love of cinema. Their only relief is the state awards, which may guarantee an OTT release,” he stated.
Films featuring children in prominent roles tend to do well when it has some kind of mainstream elements. But these are far and few in between, like My Dear Kuttichathan the first 3D film in India, Manu Uncle with Mammootty, Unnikale Oru Kadha Parayam with Mohanlal, Ente Veedu Appuvintem featuring Jayaram and Kalidasan, and Annmariya Kalippilanu, which has Dulquer Salmaan in a cameo. Humour-filled films like My Dear Muthachan or Philips and the Monkeypen also score. These had intriguing themes too, like the trauma a child goes through after a crime, non-sob stories of neglected kids, revenge of a child, or a friendly ‘god’ popping up in your bedroom.
However, when awards are announced, tall standards are set, with comparisons to artistic creations like Aravindan’s Kummatty, a magical fantasy, or Jayaraj’s Deshadanam about a child forced into priesthood. But critically-acclaimed movies can still miss the prize, like TD Dasan Std VI B (2010) and Athisayangalude Venal (2017).
Child actors too, recognised by other awards like Film Critics or Asianet, have missed out on state awards. A case in point is Ashwin Thampy, who as a seven-year-old managed to capture the ache of a bereaved son in Saphalyam (1999).
‘If not the film, recognise the child artiste’
A separate award for the Best Children’s Film began only in 1978, in an attempt to recognise the category as important. Ramu Kariat’s Ammuvinte Attinkutty was the first film to win the award. However, there have been several years in between when no film was selected for the award. “The separate category was formed to encourage the making of children’s films. Even the amount awarded for Best Children’s Film is more than what is paid in the other categories, for this purpose,” said critic Ramachandran.
However, there seems to be some confusion over what films are considered for the children’s awards. “A film censored under Children’s Film can only compete in the Children’s Film category, which means that other technicians cannot apply for the awards. It is also easier to get a producer and a theatrical release if you do not censor a film as Children's Film. But then, for the Best Child Artist award, films in the general category have also been considered in the past,” said Manu Radhakrishnan, director of the film Gu, a horror fantasy for children that came out last year.
From 1969, the year that the Kerala State Film Awards were founded, the Best Child Artist award has been given every year without fail. Among them are actors who grew up to make a mark in cinema, like Sridevi, Sobha, Shalini, Sonia, Geetu Mohandas, Vineeth Kumar, Shamili, Manjima, Pranav Mohanlal, Kalidas Jayaram, Minon, Sanusha, Sanoop, and Anikha.
Many of their films were not censored as a Children's Film. So in 1983, when Mamattikuttiyamma, one of the most cherished films about a child’s adoption, came out, the film did not win in the Children's Film category, but Shalini, as the mesmerising three-year-old, won the Best Child Artist award. Nombarathipoovu, Padmarajan’s 1987 classic about children with disability, also won no award for Best Film, but Sonia grabbed the child actor award.
“We had taken it in our stride when no film, including ours, won the Best Children’s Film. But we were really dejected by the jury's comments that no child actor was good enough, and no efforts were made to tell a child’s perception of things. We felt sure that Prakash Raj has not seen our film, that he probably only watched the final selection, shortlisted after the preliminary round,” said Kannan Nayar, one of the adult actors in Sthanarthi Sreekuttan.
The film created waves last year when its concept of democratic classrooms was adopted in some State-run schools. The idea is that of a circular seating for students with the teacher in the midst, in place of benches and desks placed one behind the other, so that no child is ‘sentenced’ to the last row for poor performance.
Discourages future attempts
Not recognising such ideas and criticisng their efforts will discourage filmmakers to make more films about children, the dejected artistes unanimously said. Sreekanth, whose film School Chale Hum was censored as a Children’s Film and was among the six competing in the category, said that it was made by pooling money of the makers, who had other jobs. “Both theatres and OTT platforms want only star films. Producers would rather spend more money on them expecting better returns than fund a small budget children’s film. Even well-made movies like Sthanarthi Sreekuttan could get a theatre release only because it had a few stars among the grownups, like Aju Varghese and Saiju Kurup,” Sreekanth said.
Sreekanth’s film, shot in the Morazha Upper Primary School in Kannur, talks about the incidents of a day when the children at the school have to solve a problem on their own. The actors were students from the school, teachers, and residents in the neighbourhood.
Yet another children's film that met a bad end came from Manu, the director of Gu, who had in 2009 shot three-fourths of the film called Yaaneyum Erumbum. Midway through filming, the funding stopped, and the film was left in limbo. By the time the money was arranged, the child had grown by months, and the film could not maintain continuity. It had to be shelved.
“That is yet another risk of filming with children,” said Sreekanth. “There is a lot of effort that goes into the making, including the arrangement of funds, the team work, getting children to cut their classes or time the shooting on their off days, and then there is of course their training, which is something we love doing. Even when we make these films, we know that there will be no [financial] returns and slim chances of getting a release. You can’t compare it with high budget films. Instead, they should be judged for their content, novelty, and effort.”