Kavi is a 2009 short film (19 minutes) from India directed by Gregg Helvey.
Kavi is a boy of maybe ten years of age, living somewhere in Maharashtra. He shares one tiny, dirty room with his parents. All three perform back-breaking labor fashioning mud into bricks which are then baked in a kiln. Eventually it becomes clear that Kavi and his family are slaves, although Kavi does not realize this and takes pride in being the overseer's "fastest worker". Eventually however, two social workers, conducting stealthy interviews in the trees that border the slave camp, talk to Kavi. The slavemaster's rage when confronting Kavi causes Kavi to realize his true situation.
Tropes:
- All There in the Manual: It's a little unclear who the do-gooders attempting to free Kavi are. Police? Apparently not because they don't produce badges and they can't get the actual security people to take more a more active role during the climactic confrontation. Intrepid Reporters? The end credits answer this by identifying them as social workers.
- Born into Slavery: Kavi's father has been trapped in the kiln for ten years and it appears that Kavi was born there, and has never left.
- Children Are Innocent: Kavi is a cheerful little boy who has no frame of reference and doesn't realize the dire situation he's in. The presence of uniform-clad upper-class children nearby who are going to school starts to clue him in, but it's not until his master beats him that true comprehension dawns.
- Crapsack World: A place in India where actual slavery is practiced, although it's dressed up as Indentured Servitude.
- Environmental Symbolism: Kavi's sole possession is some sort of green plant in a pot that he likes to take care of. As the true nature of his existence dawns on him, his plant wilts, and by the end looks about dead.
- Hard-Work Montage: A montage shows poor Kavi working as hard as he can, clearing reject bricks, because he thinks the master will let him play cricket.
- Indentured Servitude: Somehow in the backstory, Kavi's father fell ten thousand rupees in debt. As a result he has been reduced to a slave, working in a kiln, with his wife and son enslaved with him.
- No Name Given: No name given for the slave driver, his brutal sidekick, or Kavi's parents.
- Slave Liberation: Two social workers set about freeing the slaves in the kiln. The fate of most of them is uncertain, as they are hurriedly driven away by the slave drivers, but the social workers do free Kavi.
- This Is a Work of Fiction: The disclaimer at the end starts off with a disclaimer to the disclaimer, saying that "Although based on research of modern slavery" before proceeding with the standard disclaimer.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: Kavi, after he is beaten by the slave driver, and sees his father beaten, and has realized what has happened. He is no longer interested in pretending that his potted plant and the bugs that live in the pot are "cows" on a "farm".
- Would Hurt a Child: Not surprising since they are slave drivers, but the overseer and his sidekick beat Kavi and chain him up.
