Anuja is a story that you think you know, but you are wrong. Stories about children in the Live Action Short Film race have a tendency to focus on emotional struggles, trauma, or concerning family dynamics, but Adam J. Graves’ film is a breath of fresh air in how it focuses on intelligence and a hunger for the next step in life. Produced by Oscar-winner Guneet Monga Kapoor, Anuja leaves you with a feeling of overwhelming hope.
Graves’ film centers on a pair of sisters–Anuja and Palak–who work together in a garment factory, and their boss, Mr. Verma, believes that he is helping his employees by giving them a job to help their families. Anuja, though, is only nine years old, and she should be in school. One in every ten children under the age of fifteen is subjected to child labor all around the world, and Graves was eager to try his hand at a coming-of-age film.
“When people ask me about my favorite films, I’ll often point back to the auteurs of classics for those who are looking for a highbrow answer,” Graves says, with a smile. “But my lowbrow answer is that I like all of these films from the early ’80s that I grew up watching. Many of of them, especially Stand By Me, are coming-of-age stories that shaped my conception of cinema. My wife and I were developing a story like that and thinking about what kinds of stories might make sense. When Suchitra [Mattai] came across this statistic, it wasn’t purely by accident. We, as a couple, are always interested in labor issues, partly because of her own family background and her artistic practice which details questions of labor and gender and her family history, which is a history of indentured labor.
It’s important to say that this not an India problem–this is a global problem. There’s child labor right here in Los Angeles, and there’s labor in California in the agricultural sector. The number itself just shocked us, because that means one in ten kids is engaged in work as opposed to attending school. The first thing I did was go to the library to see what I could find on child labor in the garment sector in India, because we were already thinking about filming there. I read a couple of books and emailed some scholars and academics. I was put in touch with Work: No Child’s Business, which has a chapter in Delhi, and I think they are anchored out of the Netherlands. We were very quickly put in touch with people on the ground who were working with kids, and it just grew from there. There are organizations that working hands-on to change the world and make it a better place for these kids.”
Kapoor, Best Documentary Short winning co-director of Netflix’s The Elephant Whisperers, felt an immediate pull to the character of Anuja from reading the script. Even though the character of Anuja is quite young, she knew that audiences couldn’t resist her.
“Stories that transcend and tug on your heart, it’s so hard to explain or put into words how that happens,” Kapoor says. “Then to translate that on screen with just the right length, the right music and the right amount of delicacy…that is so difficult. That comes from the craft of filmmaking. How do you translate that from a good script? For me, the eyes of Anuja, her determination jumped out at me, and I’m a huge fan of intelligent protagonists. Anuja is so bright, and she can make things work but not in a heroic way. That really touched me, and it became a power in her own little world. Her smile, her hustle, seeing her sell those bags–the honesty and the intention came through and it put it a smile on my face. It’s so hard to make films and to make independent films. When something shines and crosses all those hurdles and has a life of its own, it makes me want to go to town and support it. I want to open every door that I have the opportunity to knock on.”
One of my favorite aspects of the film is how we know of Anuja’s mathematical skills, but she is still a kid. Kids do not hold back when it comes to telling the truth, and they aren’t inhibited yet by the world’s expectations of them. When Anuja and Palak decide to sell the fabric bags to raise money for Anuja’s aptitude test, they are chased through a mall by a security guard, and Anuja escapes by hiding in racks of clothes or under tables. Graves explains how he wanted to capture that youthful energy to couple it with growing smarts.
“We were lucky to have an actress who really is a reflection of the real character,” Graves says. “Sajda [Pathan] does have this superpower. The one thing that was really important for us was that we never portray these characters as victims. You could make that film, but we weren’t interested in telling it that way. They’re way too smart and their agency is so powerful and strong, and Sajda’s performance manages to capture this combination of childlike innocence while also being smart and scrappier than any of the adults in the room. At the beginning, she’s watching these two adults squabble over her future, but she’s got both of them on the hook. By the end of the film, in some ways, all the power is now on her shoulders. The adult men think they are determining things for her but, in the end, she’s determining their fates. That inversion of the power dynamics helps you realize that it’s not a sob story about passive children. They are not pawns.”
Palak doesn’t give herself enough credit. Early in the film, she tells Anuja, ‘You’re not cut out to work in a factory. It’s fine for someone like me, but mom wanted this for you.’ Graves is quick to point out that even though these young women are on different paths, it does not signal that either need saving. Their courses just differ, and Palak only wants Anuja to understand that she can walk that road on her own terms.
“I hope that when people hear that line that they know that it’s not true,” Graves says, thoughtfully. “Palak is just as gifted as Anuja–she’s innovative and she thinks outside of the box. She’s a problem solver and very crafty. Palak undersells herself, in a lot of ways. In our research, it confirmed that these kids live in a different reality. When Palak tells Anuja to not worry because she will be promoted to a machine operator, that was taken directly from an interview with a girl who worked in a factory. She dreamed of that so he wouldn’t have to be on the floor doing thread cutting.”
“There is a thin line between exploitation and empowerment as we brought our film lens into India,” Kapoor adds. “It was important to me, as an Indian, that I found this empowering, honestly. The language between these two girls is one of the things that drew me into the story. It’s preserving but also being empowered.”
Anuja has been shortlisted for Best Live Action Short Film. Nominations will be announced on Sunday, January 19th.
