End of crowd-funding on Sunrise - $21,000 contributed by very very generous Fans, Friends, Buddies, Comrades, Allies, Patrons and Lovers! Thank you you all! Now to the next stage :)

Crowdfunding total reaches $71, 510

Go to www.sunrisethefilm.com for more

Sunrise (Arunoday) with Adil Hussain (Life of Pi), Tannishtha Chatterjee (Brick Lane), Nandita Bora and others

Written, Directed & Produced by Partho Sen-Gupta ~ Cinematography by Jean-Marc Ferriere ~ Music by Eryck Abecassis 

Psychological Thriller / 90min approx (1h30min) / Hindi (subtitles in English/French and other languages)

THE STORY

In the sprawling megalopolis of Mumbai, Inspector Joshi searches desperately for his six-year-old daughter, Aruna, who one day, ten years ago, had not come home after school. By day, Joshi is a cog in the wheel of the apathetic police force; by night, he roams the backstreet dancing bars endlessly searching for his daughter. A shadowy figure appears to be everywhere Joshi goes but, despite numerous attempts to catch him, it remains elusive. Late at night, Joshi returns to his cramped apartment to face his broken wife(scene in the teaser).

Naina, a 6-year-old girl, is brought by traffickers to a brothel and is entrusted to Komal, a teenage prostitute. The girl watches as the other children are sent out to �clients�. Joshi and the other cops lead a raid on the brothel, but the pimps hide the children in a false ceiling. Joshi feels the presence of the shadowy figure.

Babu, a 16-year-old boy, is brought to Joshi badly beaten. Joshi cannot get any answers out of him. He decides to investigate Babu�s family but nothing is turned up. Yet he feels the presence of the shadowy figure.

Before the SUNRISE, Joshi must catch the elusive figure that destroys the lives of children.

THE IMPACT

Every 5^th Child in the world lives in India.

Once in Mumbai, I saw a group of people outside a police station silently protesting. There were men and woman of all ages and all classes of Indian society. Their faces were drawn and they sat or stood holding large pictures of smiling children. The names, ages and the dates their children had disappeared were handwritten under the pictures. Some had disappeared on their way back from school, some while they were playing in gardens and parks or while out with their parents.

As I stood and watched their sadness, I was reminded of something that had happened to me when I was seven years old, at a time when parents still allowed their children to go out unsupervised. My friends and I were playing innocently on the beach. As we dug holes and built turrets in the sand, two men came up, grabbed me and tried to take me away. I screamed and struggled. My friends called for help and some adults came running. The two men panicked, dropped me and ran away. This traumatic event has stayed with me throughout my life, often reproducing itself in disturbing nightmares. I have often wondered what my life would have been like had I been abducted. I have tried to imagine my parents� grief and the effect it would have had on their lives. I wonder what and where I would be today. I imagined my parents standing across the street, silently holding up my picture, my father looking defeated, as if he had been rendered impotent by this loss, but with a hint of anger in his eyes, a spark that could ignite at any moment. My mother just sitting and staring into the distance.

 Sunrise is a thought provoking and hard-hitting film that addresses the taboo of child abuse in India. In 2007, the Ministry of Woman and Child Development published the 'Study on Child Abuse: India 2007'. It reveals that an alarming 53.22% of children in India reported having faced sexual abuse. (http://wcd.nic.in/childabuse.pdf). Nevertheless, the Indian Penal Code does not recognise child abuse as an offence and most offenders (local and foreign) escape with light sentences.

My aim is to meld social commentary and the thriller genre together in order to extend the film�s reach as, due to the popularity of fiction feature films in India, a fictionalised account will have a greater impact than a documentary. The film�s intention is to generate discussion of this neglected topic among ordinary Indians and encourage legal action against those who target children for abuse.

Charity screenings will be organised worldwide alongside a general release in order to raise money for organisations fighting child abuse and to raise awareness of the problem

HOW THE FUNDS WILL BE USED

The film will be a low budget world cinema film that, building on my first feature film Hava Aney Dey (Let the Wind Blow) that opened at the Berlin International Film Festival, would premi�re at a major international film festival (Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Sundance, Rotterdam, etc.). Most of the major cast and crew members will work on expenses only or deferments. Additional funds will be raised from private and institutional funders. We will publish a statement of accounts at the end of the production.

The funds collected here will be used to pay for

Pre-production (Preparation) (30 days)

Shooting (20 days of 14 hour shifts/day)

and Editing (1 month).

All that you'll see on the screen will be paid for by you:-

Cameras and lenses rental, location rentals, wages for some actors and child actors, electricians, carpenters, lighting crew, painters, stunt-persons, costumes, set props, make-up & hair, day-to-day shooting expenses, transport, editing expenses.

At the end of this we would have a film that can be shown to selectors and other gatekeepers of the professional film industry. 

TECHNICAL DETAILS

Sunrise will be shot using the new revolutionary technology that is taking the independent movie industry by storm. We will be using HDSLRs like the LUMIX GH1 (Tester 13) & the Nikon D7000. Using these small cameras, we will be able to shoot guerrilla style. Cinematographer, Jean-Marc Ferriere has extensive experience of working under difficult circumstances during the shooting of my first film that was also shot in Mumbai.

We will be recording live sound on the Zoom H4N recorder.

As a funder you will have access to a weekly progress report  and 'behind the scenes' videos via our blog.

If you want to play a role in the making of this film, every step of the way, from pre-production to the big screen, please pitch in and tell your friends and networks! Any help is valuable!

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