If you haven’t seen Garth Davis’ Lion yet, it’s a powerful and emotional movie based on the true story of Saroo Brierley, a boy who’s separated from him mother in India and then adopted by an Australian couple. Dev Patel does an amazing job as an adult Saroo trying to find his family using Google Earth, but the young Sunny Pawar absolutely shines as young Saroo wandering an unfamiliar Calcutta as a lost boy.
Behind this moving story is the very real problem of missing children in India—more than 11 million children live on the streets, and 80,000 go missing each year. Saroo’s story is one of many. As a result, the film’s been part of a social media campaign called #LionHeart to help children in India. Producers See-Saw Films, The Weinstein Company, and The Charity Network launched the campaign to provide support to organizations like Magic Bus, which aims to educate children, and Railway Children, which works with kids living in streets or railway stations. You can see Patel give a statement in the video above. Lion is not only a beautiful story, it’s also a movie actively rallying for change and awareness. For instance, with this recent ad that takes on Trump’s Muslim ban head-on.
#LionMovie confronts @realDonaldTrump‘s travel ban in a new ad https://t.co/5vavx6VTlC pic.twitter.com/CbphZXIVC6
— Variety (@Variety) February 9, 2017
Today, the campaign announced Lion donations have passed $250,000. Additionally, the partnership which includes Lion’s overseas distributors have increased corporate donations, Deadline reports, from $50,000 to more than $105,000. You can learn more about #LionHeart and maybe even contribute here.
(via Deadline, Featured Image via The Weinstein Company)
—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—
Follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google+.
