The Indian film “Like Stars on Earth” is a psychological drama full of feelings and emotions. The main character is Ishaan Awasthi, an 8-year-old boy who has been different from his peers since early childhood. When he fails his school exams for the third time, the principal advises his parents to move him to a school for children with intellectual disabilities. His father, an ambitious family man, does not want to believe that his son has a mental disability and thinks that the child’s failures come from mischief and stubbornness. He decides to send his son to a boarding school, to discipline him and correct his character.
Abandoned by his family, blaming himself and his parents, Ishaan withdraws into himself and sinks into deep depression. And here the teachers come to the unanimous conclusion that he is incapable of mastering the curriculum.
One day a temporary art teacher, Ram Nikumbh, appears in the school and in the child’s life. He guesses that the boy suffers from a rare condition, DYSLEXIA, in which people have difficulty learning to read and write. The teacher decides to help the boy and to change the way society and his family treat him. The most famous dyslexics in history were W. Churchill, H. C. Andersen, A. Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci and Vladimir Mayakovsky.
“Among people,” the teacher tells the children, “there have been born such gifted individuals that they managed to change the course of history. And all because they could look at the world differently. Their thinking was unconventional, and not everyone understood them. They were mocked. But in spite of this, they kept going their own way and reached such heights that the whole world applauded them.”
This amazing film about unconventional children, about relationships between children and parents, about teachers and students, will not leave you indifferent. And although, as is customary in Indian films, there are dance and music scenes, they do not spoil the meaning of the film.
The film received several dozen nominations, and in 2009 the drama was put forward for an Oscar as “the best Indian film”; it also entered the world’s top list of best films.
Watch and enjoy!
With love, Tatyana.
