Still Smiling

She began the year with an Oscar for her documentary Smile Pinki,and now,several months later,filmmaker Megan Mylan is still getting used to living in the spotlight. “I am comfortable staying behind the camera and away from the public glare. But,random people approach me and pat my back,” she says. Smile Pinki is a 39-minute film about an eight-year-old girl Pinki Sonkar from a poor rural family near Varanasi . Her cleft lip makes her a social outcast in her village,but her life is magically transformed when she undergoes free surgery under the Smile Train programme.

Mylan is now on a fortnight-long road trip across India to promote the film through discussions about cleft lip surgeries. “Winning the Oscar was like a warm embrace and I am determined to put the glow of the award into action. I feel it is my responsibility to spread the social message behind the film to a wider audience,” says Mylan. “The best way to convince an urban and educated audience about cleft lip deformities is to screen the film in a theatre,” she adds.