The Magic Box

With their film – Stanley Ka Dabba – releasing today,Amol Gupte and Divya Dutta made a city appearance on Thursday at Gold Big Cinemas,Kalyani Nagar. Stanley ka Dabba claims to be a simple tale of childhood innocence,love and security. “Making the film was a beautiful process of unlearning and going back to childhood,” said Dutta,who plays the role of Rosy Miss. “Rosy Miss is the teacher all the boys look at and make sweet little cards for. It was delightful to be around nine-year-olds who act their age,unlike the children you see in advertisements and other movies who have grown too matured,” she added. Gupte went back to his alma mater,The Holy Family High School in Mumbai,to shoot the film. “It all started off as a Saturday extra class for theatre and drama. Nobody was forced to come; it was voluntary and kids came because they enjoyed themselves there. I never gave the kids a script,the scene was narrated to them like a story and they came up with the dialogues. There were no special lights used and we shot the entire film with a Cannon 7D handycam,” revealed Gupte. The crew consisted of five persons including himself,Deepa Bhatia,Divya Dutta and two more volunteers. “Children in movies are not treated like children. They are pushed to the extremes by their parents; they miss school; they miss being around kids of their own age; they lose out on their childhood,” said Gupte. “It is against the law in the US to shoot with a kid for more than five hours,but in India people make excuses,saying that there are tutors on the set. How much do you want the kid to do? Shoot for 12 hours and study mathematics and physics in between? We have an animal rights person on the set monitoring you if you are working with an animal but in the case of children,we do not have a basic law that is followed in order to keep their childhood intact,” he added. For his film,Gupte shot only five hours every Saturday at the school premises.