Age - No problem, even for Direction...

This industry is like a honeycomb which attracts so many people irrespective of the age. We have come across debut of Chockalinga Bhaagavadar or Manickam Vinayagam @ 60 plus and many young child artistes from the age of 1 year onwards.

But normally, to go behind the camera and instruct the actors, it takes ages for people. Sometimes, they achieve it after a long stint in the industry as assistants like our Balaji Sakthivel, Bala etc.,. Some directors like Maniratham, Gnana.Rajasekaran (Mohamul / Bharathi...), Selvaraghavan were able to join this band at a reasonable age, without any prior experience as assistants.

Only few get the break at an early stage (I mean, at the age of late 20's or early 30's), after their small stint as assistants. But only, few of them make it big.. few go under the carpet as assistants once again, like Balaji Sakthivel (after 'Samurai'), Vasanthabalan (after 'Album', now directing Shankar's 'Veyil') etc.,

Rarely, we get directors at 20plus under the limelight. Recently, I could name Simbu who had taken up the director's role for 'Vallavan'. For a person, who was brought up with 'Cinema' as the nutrient in-take everyday, it is not a big deal. Siddharth who started his career as assistant director to Maniratnam, had gone into acting suddenly. Hope he achieves his ambition as a director at the earliest. We can name a few like this, at this age group...

In other languages also, the above trend continues.. Only recently, we have started getting more youngsters in this role.

But the news is not about all these youngsters...It is is about this Kishan.

".......Ten-year-old Kishan is all set to enter the Guinness Book as the youngest film director ever.... When boys of his age are busy taking notes in class, Kishan is juggling frenetic shooting schedules and dashing off notes to his crew on the sets. Kishan, launched the shooting of his full-length feature film "C/o Footpath," that has Bollywood star Jackie Shroff, Kannada artiste and National Award winner Tara and others in the cast. He is an experienced actor with about two-dozen films to his credit.....

The film is shot in Kannada and will be remade in Tamil and Hindi... The youngest director of professionally made feature film as per Guinness Book Of World Records is Sydney Ling, from Netherlands, who directed the film "Lex the Wonderdog" in his 13th year..."

I could say that, beyond luck, his talent would also have favoured him, in such a competitive industry. Trust this boy has done his homework well, that the exam result will be in his favour.. Let us welcome this kid, to give some quality output.

It is refreshing & rare to see professionals at this age. Eventhough, we cannot expect more directors of his age (!!) very frequently, hope we can get some more reasonably young blood with fresh ideas without being assistant for more than 10 years....

Pic Courtesy: The Hindu
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