Salaam Bombay! India| United Kingdom| France| 1988 Subtitled English

Salaam Bombay! (Hindi: सलाम बॉम्बे!) is a 1988 Hindi film directed by Mira Nair, ...Salaam Bombay! (Hindi: सलाम बॉम्बे!) is a 1988 Hindi film directed by Mira Nair, and screenwritten by her longtime creative collaborator, Sooni Taraporevala. The film chronicles the day-to-day life of children living on the streets of Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay). It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi, the National Board of Review Award for Top Foreign Film, the Golden Camera and Audience Awards at the Cannes Film Festival, and three awards at the Montréal World Film Festival. The film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Plot Summary
This is a story of a boy named Krishna, who gets fed up of being continuously bullied by his elder brother, Krishna sets fire to his motor-bike, and this gets him into big trouble with his mother. She takes him to the nearby Apollo Circus, and tells him that he can only come home after he earns Rs.500/- to pay for the damaged bike. Krishna agrees to do so and finds employment with the circus. One day the Circus Boss asks him to run an errand, and when Krishna returns back he finds that the circus has packed up and traveled elsewhere. Alone, with nowhere to turn to, and unable to find Rs.500 to repay his mother, he decides to travel to the nearest big city - which is Bombay. Upon his arrival in Bombay, he is robbed of all his meager possessions. He follows the thieves, and befriends them. He ends up in Bombay's notorious red-light area of Falkland Road near Grant Road Railway Station. One of the thieves, Chillum, also a drug pusher and addict, helps Krishna get a job with the owner of a tea stall "Grant Road Tea Stall". Krishna gets a new name "Chaipau", and learns to live with it. His goal is to get the Rs.500 and return home to his mother. Krishna soon finds out that saving money with his surroundings and people near him is next to impossible. To make matters worse, he has a crush on a young prostitute, Sola Saal, he sets fire to her room and attempts to elope with her - in vain. This gets him a severe beating, and he also loses his job. He works odd jobs to feed himself, and look after Chillum, who cannot live without his drugs. He and his pals also rob an elderly Parsi man of his belongings by breaking into his house in broad daylight. One night while returning home, he and several of his friends are apprehended by the police, and taken to a juvenile home. But this detention was not to last very long, as Krishna escapes, and goes back to his world - the world of drug-pushers, pimps, prostitutes, and nurture his dream of someday going back to his mother.

Cast
Shafiq Syed - Krishna/Chaipau
Hansa Vithal - Manju
Chanda Sharma - Sola Saal
Raghuvir Yadav - Chillum
Anita Kanwar - Rekha
Nana Patekar - Baba
Irrfan Khan - Letter Writer (Deleted Scene)
Raju Barnad - Keera
Chandrashekhar Naidu - Chungal
Sarfuddin Quarrassi - Koyla
Mohanraj Babu - Salim
Sanjana Kapoor - Foreigner reporter Awards
[edit] Won
1988: Audience Award, Cannes Film Festival
1988: Golden Camera, Cannes Film Festival
1988: National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi
1988: National Film Award for Best Child Artist: Shafiq Syed [1]
1988: National Board of Review Awards: Top Foreign Film
1988 : Lilian Gish Award Excellence in Feature Film, Los Angeles Women in Film Festival (tied with Elysium)
1988: Jury Prize, Montréal World Film Festival (tied with The Dawning)
1988: Most Popular Film, Montréal World Film Festival
1988: Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, Montréal World Film Festival
[edit] Nominated
1989: Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
1990: BAFTA Film Award Best Film not in the English Language
1989: César Award for Best Foreign Film (Meilleur film étranger)
1990: Filmfare Best Director Award
1989: Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
[edit] Trivia
Most of the young actors who appeared in Salaam Bombay! were actual street children. They received dramatic training at a special workshop in Bombay before they appeared in the film.
In 1989, director Mira Nair established an organization called the Salaam Baalak Trust to rehabilitate the children who appeared in the film. Most of them were eventually helped. The Trust is still in existence, and now lends support to street children in Mumbai/Bombay, Delhi and Bhubaneshwar.
This was the movie showing in the theatre during the film Scenes from a Mall, starring Woody Allen and Bette Midler.
Shafiq Syed, who played the role of Krishna in the movie now earns his living as an autorickshaw driver in Bangalore (now Bengaluru]

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