SMILE PINKI -- and an interview with filmmaker Megan Mylan

Just yesterday, in TrustMovies' post on Gomorrah, I posited the notion that this film's utter lack of hope had ruled it out of consideration for a Best Foreign Film "Oscar." Now, I find myself covering a new short documentary chock-a-block with hope -- and, sure enough, it has been honored by the Academy with that much sought after Oscar nomination.SMILE PINKI, produced and directed by Emmy-nominated/Guggenheim fellow Megan Mylan, follows two rural kids from India -- the title character, a little girl named Pinki, as well as a boy called Ghutaru -- both of whom have cleft lips. In completely straight-ahead fashion, the film moves along, first via the recruiting people announcing the availability of the free operations and ferreting out likely candidates (including Pinki and Ghutaru) from the hinterlands and explaining the situation to their families, after which we all make the trip to the hospital, get ready for the operations -- and see their results.Within this fairly standard format, Mylan packs in a lot of interesting detail, from the way in which the recruiters work to the look and feel of rural family life, the hospital procedures, and especially the feelings of the children themselves about this operation and what it might mean to them. I remember (from my own childhood in the early 1950s) one of my school mates who had a cleft lip, the reactions to which ranged from polite appearing-not-to-notice to outright, often rather nasty, teasing. These Indian children seem to suffer the same. One young man, who has teeth growing directly out of his nostrils, appears especially hard hit. There is no getting around the particularly grotesque look that this defect lends those whom it afflicts, and so, when help finally comes, the change is so quietly spectacular that you can expect your tears to flow. Mine certainly did, and I don't think Ms Mylan can legitimately be accused of jerking them. The response is simply part of our -- viewers' and subjects' -- shared humanity.I could do without, however, the tag line on the Smile Pinki poster (shown above), "A Real-World Fairy Tale." This is no fairy tale. Yeah, yeah -- I know this is just a "marketing" ploy, but the term somehow cheapens the hard work of India's G.S. Memorial Hospital, the outreach staff, and the efforts of the world's leading cleft charity The Smile Train, which, since the year 2000, has provided more than 309,000 free surgeries for children who would otherwise have gone wanting. Each surgery costs $250 and takes around 45 minutes. That's a pittance of time and -- considering how important is the operation to the life of the recipient -- money. So get out your checkbook. Whoops-- I'm living in the past again. These days you can do all -- or most -- of your contributing online. (If, that is, anyone has any money left.)Since I haven't seen any of the other nominated documentary shorts, I can't make a legitimate comparison in terms of content, style or results. Smile Pinki is certainly worth seeing, and for those readers interested in doing so prior to the Academy Awards presentation, the film will screen this month at the following locations:Today, February 13, in Boulder, Colorado, Film FestivalSunday, February 15 at MoMA in NYCTues and Wednesday, February 17-18, in San Francisco at the Kabuki TheaterSaturday, February 21, at the Writer's Guild in Los AngelesSunday, February 22, at the Paley Center, NYCSunday, February 22, at the National Archives in Washington DCThursday through Saturday, February 26-28, in Columbia, MO, at the True/False Film Festival.You can also access the Smile Pinki web site for info on further screenings in March.