Samay, the 9-year-old spitfire at the center of Last Film Show, is a pintsize wheeler-dealer, a wily old soul and a bit of a mechanical genius. As in another recently arrived film, The Fabelmans, this young protagonist’s obsession with the big screen begins with a family trip to the local theater (Spielberg’s name is one of many in the pantheon that writer-director Pan Nalin invokes at the beginning and end of his feature). But for rural kid Samay, owning his very own camera is not an option as it is for suburbanite Sammy Fabelman. With impressive ingenuity, he finds another way to make movies.
Set in 2010, as the art of 35mm projection is about to be made obsolete by the advent of digital, India’s official submission to the Academy Awards is a kid’s-eye-view story that never condescends. Alive with movie love,