This film began without expectations other than the belief it will communicate a meaningful and inspirational understanding of the issues that challenge children and adults who are "less abled" by Cerebral Palsy and other conditions where beautiful minds are restricted by movement, motor skills and muscle tone.
The filmakers share a trust and a deep commitment to sharing this story as an inspirational and positive narrative that could help change the way we perceive ‘disability’ and its caregivers.
Susheel Kurien
Susheel is a passionate jazz and film fan, and developed a love for both creative forms while growing up and working in India. His first professional career began as an assistant to a filmmaker in Bombay, India. He went on to a creative career in India that included multi-media production and as an award-winning copywriter. He has been an adopted New Yorker since 1981 and his later careers include senior positions as a management consultant in an international advisory firm, an independent business advisor, and most recently as an entrepreneur. In 2008 he began work on a feature length documentary film that captured a hidden story of how jazz was brought to India and its life thereafter. In 2012, soon after completion, he was honored to have Finding Carlton - Uncovering the Story of Jazz in India screened as the keynote film at the 1st International Jazz Day Celebration at the UN. He has also worked on a number of short films and has had the recent privileged to be a consulting editor on some documentaries.
Matt Bockelman
Fly’s Eye Films was founded in 2010 by Matt Bockelman with the objective of creating substantive documentaries with a strong visual aesthetic. Matt is from Indiana and studied film at Indiana University, Bloomington. He now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, where he directs documentaries and is a freelance cinematographer and editor. He teaches as an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Matt is also the director of cinematography for the USA sequences of Finding Carlton. With a strong sense of culture and its subtle nuances, Matt’s work is uncompromising and brings his own perspective and additive value to this film.
Rikhav Desai - Editor
Rikhav is a highly acclaimed film editor whose work has earned several international awards, including that of India's official entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 88th Academy Awards. He lives and works in Bombay and came to film editing after a yearlong film production course at the Xavier Institute of Communication (XIC). In his career, Rikhav has worked as an offline editor and post-production designer/supervisor with a production house in Bombay which produced ad films and corporate videos. In 2003, he made the switch to editing documentary and independent films, which has brought him continued accolades, including three National Award-winning documentary films. Rikhav worked closely with Susheel on his documentary film Finding Carlton.
Sagar Shiriskar - Cinematography (India)
Sagar Shiriskar is based in India. He has studied at the Film and Television Institute of India. He was the winner of Chance of a Lifetime, a documentary series produced and hosted by Ashok Amritraj (Hyde Park Entertainment, Inc.), the United Nations, Image Nation (Abu Dhabi), UCLA Burkle Center, and Variety Magazine. As part of the competition, he co-directed three short documentary films on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The winning film was screened at the United Nations Headquarters in New York and was honored with a special recognition by Variety magazine at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. The series has been aired on Participant Media's Pivot on US television. His short film The Boy and the Parrot has been screened in festivals across India and was recently screened at the 11th Indian Film Festival in Stuttgart, Germany.
As a photographer, some of his work has been a part of a traveling exhibition in the UK called Our Stories by The Photographic Angle, an association linked to the Royal Photographic Society. His photographs have also been published in Great Travel Photography, published by Imagine books, and also used as a cover Image by Packt Publishing. His photographs have been published online by Live Mint & the Wall Street Journal, Guardian, the Himal Southasian magazine, Le Journal de la Photographie, Powderzine Magazine, Blouin Art Info, Indian Express, Mint, FWA, L’Oeil de la Photographie, Unboxed Writers, Wall Street International, Wherever Mag and the Life Force Magazine.
He was declared winner of the Tamron Best Travel Photo Competition by the Get Lost magazine, Australia. He also won the India Is- Photography Challenge 2012 (Series 3), an initiative by the Public Diplomacy Division (PDD) of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), supported by Incredible India.
Bruce Edwards - Composer
For many years now, Bruce Edwards has been a "first call" guitarist in New York's music community. His chameleonic ability to adapt his style and sound to suit the demands of the moment has taken him from playing bluesy rock with G.E. Smith and Lenny Pickett of the Saturday Night Live band in one moment, to the frenetic avant-garde jazz of visionary Sun Ra in the next, as well as accompanying artists as diverse as R&B group Fatty Koo. As a guitarist, composer, arranger, and musical director, Bruce has worked on Broadway in the hit musical "Swing!" as well as plays by Keith Glover, Diane Macintyre, and others. He was also musical director and MIDI technologist for eJamming, Inc for 2 years, organizing and performing the first internet MIDI performance in a nightclub in 2006 at the Bitter End in NY's West Village, which brought together musicians from as far away as Boston on one stage, simultaneously via the internet. Working on TV and film projects, he has composed music that includes jingles and ad music for products such as ATT Japan, Johnson & Johnson, Sears, Fuji Film, as well as a PSA for Action Against Hunger, which earned him a Telly Award in 2006. He also composed and produced music for promo spots for TVLAND, Nick at Night, Nickelodeon, and in 2003 produced much of the underscore for MTV's "March Madness Uncensored", as well as the "Cribs Rock" DVD. He also contributed music and sound design to the Emmy Award winning PBS documentary series "This Far by Faith". Film Scores include "The Red Pawn", "Loose Ends", "The Forest Of Aragon", "Going up Yonder", and more. Emphasizing strong musical elements and emotional content, Bruce Edwards strives to integrate his music and sound design into your project, to enhance your message, and help propel it forward, whether it be Film, Advertising, TV, or Multimedia.