Danny Boyle promises Slumdog Millionaire child stars new homes

The British director Danny Boyle yesterday promised the two young stars of Slumdog Millionaire that their families would be given new homes after their shanty dwellings in Mumbai were bulldozed by city authorities this month. Boyle and Christian Colson, producer of the Oscar-winning movie, met Rubina Ali, nine, and 10-year-old Azharuddin Ismail and their relatives in the city for a meeting hastily organised after photographs of the child actors standing in the rubble of their homes were printed in newspapers around the world. While the filmmakers have set up trust funds to support their young Indian stars, they have faced repeated media criticism that the commitment has been both slow and modest. The director said Azharuddin's family, who have been living in a makeshift tarpaulin and blanket shanty, had already been bought a new flat, while one would be purchased soon for Rubina, who is currently staying with relatives, at a combined cost of around £60,000. "We've been trying for a long time to move them into legal accommodation," Boyle said. But while Boyle and Colson were photographed hugging Rubina, who played the young incarnation of Latika, the film's romantic heroine, and Azharuddin, who took the part of Salim, the tearaway brother of the main protagonist, Jamal, Rubina's father, stormed out of the meeting. "It's no big deal for them, this kind of money," he told reporters. "After the Oscars they forgot about us. For two months we didn't get any money." Boyle accepted that the families were impatient for action calling much of the conflict "media generated". "They were given access to a world, an extraordinary and glamorous world, and they understandably want their lives to be completely transformed," he said. "The homes are a concern. That is one of the reasons why we built the trust."