• Listen to this segment with Richie Mehta

• Listen to the entire program with Sonali Kolhatkar

The International Labor Organization touts the fact that child labor worldwide has “declined by one third since 2000, from 246 million to 168 million children.” The numbers are still too high, and some of the highest rates are seen in Asia and the Pacific. India alone has more than 10 million child workers. The BBC reports, “One child goes missing every eight minutes in India and nearly half of them are never found.” The trafficking of child workers goes hand-in-hand with child labor.

Canadian born Indian film maker Richie Mehta has made a new feature film about the New Delhi family of one such child worker who disappears, and his father’s desperate search for his child. Siddharth is the second film by the acclaimed young director, who based the story on the real life experience of a man he once met. The film is stark, and reflects the despair felt by parents throughout the country and world who have lost their children to trafficking.

According to a review by Variety, “the Canadian-born Mehta proves that diasporan directors can make profound films about the subcontinent without too much pandering to Western tastes, playing with Indian tropes while incorporating indie aesthetics.”

GUEST: Richie Mehta, who wrote, directed, and edited Siddharth

Siddharth opens at the Nuart theater in Los Angeles this Friday for 1 week and at the Landmark’s Shattuck theater in Berkeley and the Opera Plaza in San Francisco during the week of July 18 through 24.

Visit siddharththefilm.com for more information.