The film’s British director, Danny Boyle, has spoken of how he set up trust funds for Rubina and Azharuddin and paid for their education. But it has emerged that the children, who played Latika and Salim in the early scenes of the film, were paid less than many Indian domestic servants.

Rubina was paid £500 for a year’s work while Azharuddin received £1,700, according to the children's parents.

However a spokesman for the film’s American distributors, Fox Searchlight, disputed this saying the fees were more than three times the average annual salary an adult in their neighbourhood would receive. They would not disclose the actual sum.

Both children were found places in a local school and receive £20 a month for books and food. However, they continue to live in grinding poverty and their families say they have received no details of the trust funds set up in their names. Their parents said that they had hoped the film would be their ticket out of the slums, and that its success had made them realise how little their children had been paid.

The children received considerably less than the poor Afghan child stars of The Kite Runner, who embarrassed their Hollywood producers when they disclosed that they had been paid £9,000.

Rubina and Azharuddin live a few hundreds yards from each other in a tangle of makeshift shacks alongside Mumbai’s railway tracks at Bandra. Azharuddin is in fact worse off than he was during filming: his family’s illegal hut was demolished by the local authorities and he now sleeps under a sheet of plastic tarpaulin with his father, who suffers from tuberculosis.

“There is none of the money left. It was all spent on medicines to help me fight TB,” Azharuddin’s father, Mohammed Ismail, said. “We feel that the kids have been left behind by the film. They have told us there is a trust fund but we know nothing about it and have no guarantees.”

Patna, Jan 26 (IANS) Slum dwellers in Bihar's capital continued to protest Monday against Oscar-nominated film 'Slumdog Millionaire', demanding the film's makers remove the word dog from the title.

The protesters said their sensibilities had been offended by the title, which they said was abusive of people who live in slums. The protests continued for the second day, even as Republic Day was being celebrated.

A group of slum dwellers protested against the showing of the film at Ashok cinema hall Sunday, while some protesters tore down posters and banners of the film.

The Jhuggi Jhonpdi Sanyukta Sangharsh Samiti (a group promoting the rights of slum dwellers) threatened to burn the film's director Danny Boyle in effigy.

'We will burn Danny Boyle in effigy in 56 slums here,' Tapeshwar Vishwakarma, general secre
tary of the group said.

Armed police guarded cinemas in eastern India today after slum dwellers ransacked a picture house showing Slumdog Millionaire because they didn't like the use of the word "dog" in the title.

Several hundred people rampaged through the cinema in Patna, capital of the eastern state of Bihar, on Monday and tore down posters advertising the film. They said the title was humiliating and vowed to continue their protests until it was changed.

The protest was organised by Tateshwar Vishwakarma, a social activist who filed a lawsuit over the title last week against four Indians involved in its production - a lead actor, the music director and two others.

But if the thing about the kids is true, then I think Boyle & co. should be ashamed of themselves. I mean, love or hate the film, the kids are clearly the best part of the entire thing and without them, this film is almost nothing. I think its absolute bullshit that the kids aren't even at these award shows, and it's even worse that they were not paid properly. Those kids should be given a percentage of the film's gross.

Is Harvey Weinstein behind another smear campaign?

as horrible as this is, can people stop blaming Boyle? It's not like he was the one responsible for their salaries, and sat in his director's chair going, "buahahaha, we shall exploit these slumdogs!!!" Wouldn't that be more in the hands of Fox Searchlight?

the hits keep coming

What, Exactly, Is Slumdog Millionaire?
Is it a) a portrait of the real India, b) a Bollywood-style melodrama, c) a fairy tale, or d) a stylishly shot collection of clichés?

http://www.slate.com/id/2209783/

FILMMAKERS STATEMENT:

From the moment that we hired them and long before the press became interested in this story, we have paid painstaking and considered attention to how Azhar and Rubina’s involvement in the film could be of lasting benefit to them over and above the payment they received for their work. (MORE)


The children had never attended school, and in consultation with their parents we agreed that this would be our priority. Since June 2008 and at our expense, both kids have been attending school and they are flourishing under the tutelage of their dedicated and committed teachers. Financial resources have been made available for their education until they are 18. We were delighted to see them progressing well when we visited their school and met with their teachers last week.

In addition to their educational requirements, a fund is in place to meet their basic living costs, health care and any other emergencies. Furthermore, as an incentive for them to continue to attend school a substantial lump sum will be released to each child when they complete their studies. Taking into account all of the children’s circumstances we believe that this is the right course of action.

Since putting in place these arrangements more than 12 months ago we have never sought to publicize them, and we are doing so now only in response to the questions raised recently in the press. We trust that the matter can now be put to bed, and we would request that the media respect the children’s privacy at this formative time in their lives.

- - Danny Boyle and Christian Colson

DISTRIBUTORS STATEMENT:

The welfare of Azhar and Rubina has always been a top priority for everyone involved with Slumdog Millionaire. A plan has been in place for over 12 months to ensure that their experience working on Slumdog Millionaire would be of long term benefit. For 30 days work, the children were paid three times the average local annual adult salary. Last year after completing filming, they were enrolled in school for the first time and a fund was established for their future welfare, which they will receive if they are still in school when they turn 18. Due to the exposure and potential jeopardy created by the unwarranted press attention, we are looking into additional measures to protect Azhar and Rubina and their families. We are extremely proud of this film, and proud of the way our child actors have been treated.

- - Fox Searchlight Pictures, Fox Star Studios, Pathe International

E. B & D

Is Harvey Weinstein behind another smear campaign?

MUMBAI, India - They are not your typical movie stars.

Ten-year-old Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail lives in a lean-to made of tarpaulins and blankets. Nine-year-old Rubina Ali's home is a tiny bubble-gum pink shack. A murky open sewer runs down her narrow lane.

Plucked from one of Mumbai's teeming slums to star in the Oscar-nominated hit "Slumdog Millionaire," they are India's real slumdog millionaires.

Like the film's hero, an impoverished tea seller who wins money and love on India's version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," they now have a chance to escape the grinding poverty they were born into. But as their still-unfolding story shows, things never go as smoothly in real life.

The filmmakers are helping the children, but fast discovering that good intentions and deep pockets don't guarantee success. Meanwhile, sudden fame and relative fortune are sowing resentment within the families and with neighbors, who wonder why their big-eyed boys weren't cast instead.

The Fox Searchlight release has grossed more than $100 million, but the children's lives seem nearly as fragile as before.

"He's supposed to be the hero in the movie, but look how he's living," said Azharuddin's mother, Shameem Ismail, sitting on a rotting board outside their lean-to. "It's a zero."

About 65 million Indians, roughly a quarter of the urban population, live in slums, according to government surveys.

"Most of them are doomed to remain as they are," said Amitabh Kundu, dean of Jawaharlal Nehru University's School of Social Sciences in New Delhi.

It's too early to tell whether Rubina and Azharuddin — Azhar to his friends — will buck the trend.

The filmmakers debated whether to use slum kids at all.

"Part of your brain thinks, would it distort their lives too much?" said Danny Boyle , the British director, by phone from London. "Then someone said, 'These people have so much prejudice against them in their lives. Why should we be prejudiced against them as well?'"

Rubina was cast as the young Latika, who grows up to become the hero's love interest, and Azhar as his brother, Salim.

Boyle and producer Christian Colson figured education was the best way to help Rubina and Azhar. They got them places in Aseema, a nonprofit, English-language school for underprivileged kids in Mumbai.

Some arrive at Aseema with matted hair, never having seen a mirror before. Many need counseling. On one blackboard, the lesson of the day read: "I must close my mouth when I eat."

School chairwoman Dilbur Parakh said half make it through high school, and she tries to find vocational training for the rest.

The filmmakers also paid the children for 30 days of acting work, give the families a small monthly stipend and set up trust funds that Rubina and Azhar can tap once they graduate.

Colson describes the amount in the trust as substantial, but won't tell anyone how much — not even the parents — for fear of making the kids vulnerable to exploitation.

As the movie's popularity swelled, the filmmakers' plan began to fray.

Journalists swarmed the school, forcing Rubina and Azhar to stay home. The families started demanding more, asking for cash and new houses, Colson said.

When the city razed Azhar's neighborhood, Colson wired the family money for a new home. He doesn't know what happened to the money, but the family remains camped out in a lean-to.

Most troubling, he said, the parents' commitment to seeing their kids through school has waned.

So the filmmakers have agreed to buy apartments and allow the families to move in. But they won't transfer ownership to the parents until Rubina and Azhar finish school at age 18.

The filmmakers have also faced criticism that they didn't fairly compensate the children, but have declined to reveal how much they paid, again citing fear of exploitation.

"It's becoming a full-time job dealing with the daily hassle," Boyle said. Still, he added, "I'm glad we did it, even with all the headache."

He hopes to give Rubina and Azhar an education rather than a jackpot — what he called a "slow nurturing" instead of "a sudden dash for glory."

"Moviemaking is distorting," Boyle said. "The last thing you want to do is turn them into a star."

But directing movies is easier than directing lives. Stardom is already distorting Rubina's world.

The latest additions to her family's meager belongings — some stainless-steel pots and old blankets — are two small photo albums.

Inside are photographs of Rubina wearing a glittering "salwar kameez" outfit and sitting in a helicopter, ready to fly off to a strange new world of red carpets and Bollywood heroes.

"My friends when they see me on TV say, 'Look, you're going to be a big actress when you grow up. You're going to forget us,'" Rubina said. "I say, 'You are my best friends. How can I forget you?'"

She dashed outside and scurried along the sewer. "See this?" she said, pointing at a tract of weeds. She seemed proud to pronounce a new English word to a foreign visitor: "jungle."

But on the narrow, dirty lanes Rubina knows best, most kids speak Hindi and Urdu and forgo school to work.

"If I wear something nice then people say how I'm trying to show off, and I normally don't talk to them in English," she said.

Azhar's mom, wrapped in the sparkly pink sari she wore to the movie opening, wonders where all the money the filmmakers promised is.

"I don't know if I should go ask them if money is coming in," she said.

Her husband usually brings in 1,500 to 3,000 rupees ($30 to $60) a month selling scrap wood, but now is hospitalized with tuberculosis, Ismail said.

Azhar sat at her elbow, distracted. His friends had been staring at him as he talked with one journalist after another.

"My friends have seen me get new clothes and go in cars and get books," he said. "Even they want that sort of life."

He celebrated his birthday recently by buying a cake and balloons for his neighbors.

Now he wanted to buy his friends chocolate, but his mother controlled the purse strings.

Azhar began to cry. Tears ran down his small face.

"It's my money and you are using it!" he shouted.

"We have 200 rupees," his mother said. "I'll give you some later."

He kept crying, twisting his body in small unhappy thrusts. "You're not giving me money," he yelled. "You're spending it on other things."

His mother grabbed a piece of brick and raised it over her head.

"Is it your money?" he shouted, daring her: "Hit me. You hit me!"

Then he fled.

Suddenly, school, Bollywood and the upcoming Oscars all seemed terribly irrelevant. There was only the plain dirt Azhar and his mother live on, and the immediate, unruly desire for cash.

Ismail tossed the brick to the ground, rolling her one good eye in exasperation. She can't see out the other one and says she needs 6,000 rupees ($120) for an operation.

"He's a star," she sighed.

Of course, blaming the filmmakers is a little unfair when you look at how hopelessly fucked up southeast Asia is. India has a lot of room to improve, but Afghanistan? The only thing coming out of there that is worth cash is being cut down by our military (i.e. the poppy).