Little Saddam looked all comfortable in the spotlight as he gleefully displayed the citation for the Best Campus Film at the 7 International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK) at the Kairali theatre. The 7-year-old star of the film Salt water was surrounded by its 12 directors, all students of the St. Joseph’s College of Communication (SJCC) in Changanassery.
Eight months ago, Saddam, a native of Rajasthan, set out alone from his home, longing to see the ocean. He boarded the first train he saw and ended up at the Kottayam railway station, from where the police took him to Childline activists. A few days later, he was taken under the care of Sister Amala of Sneha Bhavan.
At the same time, the students of the SJCC were on the look-out for a theme to make their film. “On the day we were having our discussion, Sister Amala, who is a student at the college, turned up late. That was the day Saddam arrived at Sneha Bhavan. When we heard his incredible story, we knew we had a film on our hands,” says Naithik Mathew, one of the directors.
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Saddam had his first sight of the sea during the shooting of the film on the Chettikad beach in Alappuzha. “When the waves crashed into him, the first words he uttered were ‘Namak paani’ (Salt water). “That became the title of the film,” says Naithik.