Gulshan Devaya starring Rasika Dougal little thomas The world premiere of the film will be taking place at the Melbourne Indian Film Festival this month. What is more, it is produced by Anurag Kashyap and interestingly enough they checked around 700 kids before finally getting hold of Hridansh Parekh playing Thomas.
The movie follows seven-year-old Thomas in his tragicomic journey
Like Parikh, a child artist and his two friends (played by actors Hridyash Gokhandi and Ninad Pandith), director Kaushal Ozar and casting director Nitin. Gore started their search in schools ever since they resumed after Covid-19 lockdowns.
Regarding the search Goel said: ”It was during very difficult times that we began to cast Little Thomas – coronavirus year. We were out of schools. Getting to children became difficult as well. However, with difficulty we got through to teachers and parents from about one group to another About 700 children were contacted through different channels.”
Goel and Oza personally met around 500 kids among approximately 700 young talents. Their first concern as producers during auditions is that children should feel free to do their best.
Coaching kids is done by Kaushal Oza
National Award-wining Director added “We don’t just start with auditions though. We speak with them for minimum half an hour trying to understand who the kid is, what he likes doing most frequently and how imaginative he or she is. We hardly Talk about the film also; we wanted to see whether he could speak Hindi, English if he looked like a poor boy who was struggling or shying away,” said the filmmaker.
“From several rounds of auditions, Parekh plays the title role; directors selected about fifteen or twenty pupils that then did workshops before auditioning again”.
