For decades, editor-filmmaker Deepa Bhatia has witnessed child actors trying their luck in front of the camera, some becoming immensely popular, others quickly forgotten. Through First Act, she delves deeper to understand the complex relationship the Hindi film industry has with child actors and their parents. While Bhatia has written and directed the six-part docu-series, she mentions that filmmaker-husband Amole Gupte—whose Taare Zameen Par (2007) and Stanley Ka Dabba (2011) had child protagonists—is the driving force. She remembers how Gupte prioritised the kids’ comfort over his shoot, a style unseen in Hindi cinema until then. “When I was editing films, I was accustomed to how the mainstream industry worked. During Stanley Ka Dabba, I couldn’t understand his process of workshopping and shooting in four hours. The obsession Amole has for the kids’ comfort changed me. In our productions, the child actor matters more than stars. He will give up a good shot, but never push a child into a space of discomfort,” she says.

Amazon Prime Video’s docu-series features interviews of popular child actors Sarika and Darsheel Safary, as well as filmmakers such as Gupte and Shoojit Sircar. It also throws light on how the movie industry is bound by laws to protect kids, beginning with how they should not be made to work beyond five hours a day. “It is up to two institutions to protect the well-being of kids—the producers and parents,” she emphasises.