Fly, bandit, fly

Adityavikram Gupta, producer of Stealing Suburbia, a 22-minute short film that was screened at the Short Film Corner at the Cannes Film Festival tells us why his film, based on the true story of Washington-based teen outlaw Colton Harris-Moore, is the tale of a kid's zeal to escape his sordid situation and live out his dream of flying

Colton Harris-Moore was charged with stealing aircraft, a boat, two cars and burgling at least 100 residences in various locations around the Pacific Northwest of the United States and Canada. In 2010, he was arrested in the Bahamas and deported to Washington, where he is awaiting trial. He was often called the 'Barefoot Bandit' since he committed some of his crimes barefoot. US-based Adityavikram Gupta and David Shapiro have made a film on him called Stealing Suburbia. Read excerpts of the interview with Gupta, who produced the film.

Director David Shapiro and producer Adityavikram Gupta during
the shoot of Stealing Suburbia

Why this particular subject?
David, the director, loved the concept of broken innocence. He drew us in while writing the screenplay about a young boy following a dream much larger than his life. From the production point of view, we were getting into a messy area by showcasing a recent outlaw as the hero of our film. Colton has a lot of support from different quarters. His means, not his intention, was wrong. We thought it was a great story to tell. But we only wanted to extract the essence of his pursuit for his almost-impossible dream of flying, despite his background.

There's a bit of a Catch Me If You Can feel to the film. Malcolm (the protagonist) is a likeable character. David believes there is a reference in terms of subject and storyu00a0-- someone unassuming going for the unattainable. We see Malcolm as a superhuman going out to achieve what he was passionate about. Although we stress that his ways and means were illegal and he caused a lot of damage, he only proved with the utmost elan that come what may, a dream is a dream and needs to be fulfilled. We wanted a Malcolm with innocence. We wanted the audience to empathise with his innocent passion to fly, and show the beauty of youth immersed in ambition and obsession.

Tell us about D'arcy (Malcom's girlfriend in the film).
There is definitely a parallel between D'arcy and Malcolm's ambitions and hopes, but it only helps in providing a link between the extreme measures that Malcolm took and the simplicity that D'arcy pursued. Her love for Malcolm and his love for flying kept them away from each other since he took the illegal way and she carried on like almost all of us otherwise do. But the two are attracted to each other because they are so different.

How has the film fared at Cannes?
It's a bit early to say although it's getting its fair share of relevant eyeballs. The movie is also giving us a wonderful first-hand account of being among the very best in the world of cinema.

Any interesting stories while shooting?
The day we will never forget is when we sat in a chopper to capture Malcolm's first flight in his stolen Cessna.

Any personal parallels with the story of the film?
There is a very direct comparison with Malcolm, David Shapiro and the rest of the wonderful crew ufffd who got to complete their dreams thanks to this film that was a dream come true with the sheer scale we got to operate in, day after day. Professionals like John Swihart, a top Hollywood composer who pledged support to the film by composing music for it, and of course, Colton Harris-Moore were big inspirations for us.

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