Oscar nomination!

I don't usually click onto the Entertainment Weekly website.

But I did tonight.

I clicked on it because it was the first available site on Google to tell me what the Oscar Nominations were.

As I skimmed down the page, I kept passing well and lesser well known names.

But I was looking for something else.

Down, down I scrolled, past the Best Original Screenplay, past the Supporting Actors, past the best Sound Mixing.

Finally I saw what I was looking for: nominations for best Live Action Short Film.

A short intake of breath - there was only one film there with a one-word name. And it was the one I was looking for - Kavi!

Our friend Gregg Helvey has done it - his short film - a gritty look at a boy in bonded labour making bricks in rural Maharashtra - has made it to the final round of this year's Oscars!

Amazing.

When I first heard that Gregg was coming out to Mumbai to shoot his thesis film for USC Film School in the countryside outside Mumbai - what could I say? I tried to be optimistic and encouraging, but the thought of an American shooting a film on his own - and that too on a challenging issue like bonded labour seemed to verge on the Quixotic.

But then I met Gregg in the flesh. Talked with him. Prayed with him. And followed the amazing progress of his making of Kavi, the movie - through hurdle after hurdle - writing, rewriting, and more rewriting, getting the site, casting, organising his crew, working with his local colleagues - then getting music composed, then mixing, and on and on.

Over time - it all seems a blur - the challenges began to fade into award after award as the film hit the film circuit - culminating with Gregg winning the Student Oscar for this year for Kavi.

Well, I thought it culminated there - but tonight has shown that Kavi has still more road to be travelled on. Gregg will be there in the Kodak Theatre when the Oscars are announced - and may even walk up and hold a golden statuette and give the customary acceptance speech...

In the mean time - if you have not seen the trailer to Kavi - please click onto the movie's website: www.kavithemovie.com

More than even the artistic achievement - which is phenomenal in itself - Gregg has managed to be a voice for the voiceless - to help a group of people whose cries are not heard - be heard - and that too all around the world!

Do spare a moment to remember the many children who are sold into slavery by their parents - or who run away from unhappy situations and are swallowed up by the evil city.

Our country has so many young boys and girls who are slaving away because they have no other option. And so many youths and adults who have grown up in this crippling life - and know no other. Many continue to enslave themselves through alcohol dependency and poor choices among the few choices they get.


We are so happy for the Kavi film. We need many, many more such stories for the truth to be told.

And we also want to see many homes opened to welcome these children - and lonely stunted adults - into our lives. If that isn't Quixotic, then I don't know what is - but that is what our Lord has commanded us to do. To love our neighbour as ourselves. To love in deed, not only in word.

To love beyond seeing a story and being moved - but actually moving out and letting the challenges of love move in with us.