“Tahaan” wins the Golden Reel Award for Best Children’s Film at the 9th annual Tiburon International Film Festival in Tiburon, California. The Golden Reel Awards were announced at the Closing Night Party Friday March 26, 2010 at Guaymas Restaurant.
Best Children’s Film: “Tahaan” by Santosh Sivan [India]
Movie Trailer at YouTube
Year: 2008
Running Time: 105 minutes
Country: India
Language: Hindi English Subtitles
Genre: Drama
Venue: Playhouse Theater
Cast: Purav Bhandare, Victor Banerjee, Rahul Bose, Ankush Dubey, Rasika Dugal, Rahul Khanna, Anupam Kher, Sana Shaikh, Dheirya Sonecha
Showtime: Sunday, March 21, 2010 @ 11:00 AM
Director: Santosh Sivan
Description: Tahaan, from award-winning, internationally-renowned director Santosh Sivan (The Terrorist, Before the Rains), is a stunningly shot, fable-like story set in scenic but strife-ridden Kashmir. The conflict is used as a backdrop for the story of an eight-year-old boy, Tahaan, who tries to gain back his beloved pet donkey that has been sold along with his family’s possessions to pay the family debt.
With his father missing in action for three years, Tahaan lives with his older sister, his loving, parable-telling grandfather, and mute mother, but is left more or less on his own to wander village and countryside, navigate border checkpoints, and negotiate with merchants and money lenders in an effort to regain his lost pet. More than a war movie, this is a film about striving, finding life-purpose, and, finally, of right and wrong — as Tahaan is recruited by a young militant to throw a grenade into an army compound, building to a heart-thumping final scene.
Like Sivan’s earlier films, Tahaan is told with warmth, humor and simple honesty, while his gorgeous cinematography offers breathtaking views of Kashmir’s snow-covered mountain passes and shimmering lakes. A recurring encounter with a group of mystic Sufi singers contributes to the atmosphere and provides a compellingly exotic musical bed.
