| Smile Pinki | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Megan Mylan |
| Produced by | Megan Mylan |
| Music by | R. Prasanna |
| Cinematography | Nick Doob Jon Shenk |
| Editing by | Purcell Carson |
| Release date(s) | 2008 |
| Running time | 39 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | Bhojpuri/Hindi |
Smile Pinki (2008) is a 39-minute documentary directed by Megan Mylan.[1] The film shows the story of a poor girl in rural India whose life is transformed when she receives free surgery to correct her cleft lip. The documentary was made in Hindi and Bhojpuri, and won the 81st Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject).
Pinki Sonkar is an five-year-old girl who is living with a severe cleft lip in one of the poorest areas of India. Not allowed to attend school at her native village, Rampur Dahaba village in Mirzapur, near Varanasi,[2] and ostracized because of her deformity, Pinki lives a life of quiet desperation as she waits and wonders if she will ever receive the cleft surgery. Her parents are unable to afford the surgery that she desperately needs. By chance, Pinki's parents meet a social worker one day who is traveling village to village, gathering patients for a hospital that provides free cleft lip surgery to thousands of poor children each year through The Smile Train program. The surgery was performed at G.S. Memorial Hospital, by plastic surgeon Dr. Subodh Kumar Singh, who along with Pinki attended the 81st Academy Award ceremony.[3][4]
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