Friday, May 20 2005 17:21 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kolkata: For the second time in a row, orphans from a city-based children's home have hit it big with a film, shot and directed entirely by them, being selected for the coveted Kids for Kids Festival, 2005 scheduled in Naples from June 30.

The film 'Aamara' shot and directed by 11-year-old Sahiful Mondal, an orphan at the CCD Destitute Children's Home near Kolkata, with his friends would be the only Indian entry among the 45 to be screened at the festival in the Italian city.

CCD Director Swapna Mukherjee said the 15-minute film had been chosen from among 350 entries worldwide.

Stemming from parentless children's concern for nature and their sense of belonging to trees around them, 'Aamara' was written and enacted by them.

The director Sahiful's early childhood was spent in the agricultural fields after his father died of TB and mother suffered acute mental illness.

Throughout his early childhood, the boy did menial jobs like tending cattle and was subjected to physical torture by his masters till he found a place in the home.

Sahiful and his peers put together a collage of nature shooting in 10-odd villages near the children's home, which provided them with the camera and the much-needed inspiration behind the film.