Dulo

After months of organized auditions and searching for the perfect lead, the filmmakers found Abbas completely by chance, playing in a park.

From crowdfunding to VFX disasters to production chaos, the entire Dulo team stuck together for four years, and somehow still share the same creative energy and synergy. In an industry where crews change project to project, this kind of sustained collaboration is remarkably rare.

With no money left and no traditional producers willing to touch the project, twenty people crammed into a room for a chaotic brainstorming session. Nobody had an actual plan. Then someone casually threw out the word "crowdfunding." That single suggestion, tossed into a room full of panic, became the solution that made the film possible.

The initial budget meant to shoot the film ended up going into pre-production instead—specifically, months of daily rehearsals training the child actors. They booked rehearsal spaces, managed daily pickups and drops, coordinated with parents, and essentially ran an unsolicited film school for children. Every single action had to be rehearsed: marks, cues, when to look, when to stop.

On the first day of shooting, Mehkansh looked at one perfectly costumed kid and said, "He's too clean." The solution? The costume team literally grabbed mud with their bare hands and rubbed it all over his clothes right there on set. The kid thought it was hilarious and was immediately ready to perform. Problem solved.

While most dystopian films use wide, epic framing to show the scale of destruction, Dulo deliberately chose a 4:3 aspect ratio—a narrower, more intimate frame. The reason? To stay close to the children's perspective. The audience doesn't see the vast world; they see the world as the kids experience it—limited, immediate, human-scale.

The film was stuck in limbo for almost a year when the VFX company literally shut down. Mehkansh took a bus to another state only to find locked doors. That delay turned out to be a blessing—it gave them time to save money and find the right team.

While the costume team had an overall design plan, they also let the child actors choose their own props and accessories. They laid everything out and let the kids pick what felt right to them. One kid chose bright yellow gloves (totally tacky, somehow perfect). Another found goggles and refused to take them off. One got a mohawk. The result: a cohesive world where every kid still had a distinct personality.

The team made multiple hour-long trips to Dharavi (Mumbai's largest slum) for auditions, convinced that's where they'd find their cast. Weeks later, they discovered the kids they were looking for lived in a settlement literally five minutes from Ajinkya's house—pointed out by his building's security guard. Sometimes the world you're looking for is right next door.