Salaam Bombay!(1988)
dir. Mira Nair
Street kids at the center of their own story.
Where to watch: Criterion Collection DVDLetterboxd ↗
Krishna, a ten-year-old sent away from his village circus, ends up alone on the streets of Bombay, working as a tea-runner and trying to earn enough to go home. He falls in with a dealer, a young girl being groomed for sale and the other street kids, and the film follows his days. Nair cast real street children and built the film through workshops. It was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
Why it’s here
The film puts street children in the centre of their own story and lets them be funny, smart and scared. What's punk is that it was made with the kids, not about them. What's pedagogical is that it treats poverty as a system that kids have to navigate. Note: the cast were non-professional street children; Nair used the profits to set up the Salaam Baalak Trust, which still runs. Companion to Behind the Beautiful Forevers.
Where This Film Lives
- Setting
- India
Read Alongside
Books that share a topic, theme, or setting with this film.
Sold
Patricia McCormick
How trafficking actually works. In verse.
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Behind the Beautiful Forevers
Katherine Boo
A Mumbai slum in the shadow of luxury hotels. Three years inside.
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Germinal
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They had nothing left to lose. They struck anyway.
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Maximum City
Suketu Mehta
Mumbai, all of it, from inside every layer.
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A Court of Thorns and Roses
Sarah J. Maas
Survival instincts don't stop at the Wall.
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A Fine Balance
Rohinton Mistry
India's Emergency. Four people. The state decides who survives.
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Amal Unbound
Aisha Saeed
The debt wasn't hers. The cage is.
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Annihilation of Caste
BR Ambedkar
The speech so radical they cancelled the conference.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST