Smile Pinki
Smile Pinki is a 39-minute documentary directed by Megan Mylan. The film shows the story of a poor girl in rural India whose life is transformed when she receives free surgery to correct her cleft lip. The documentary was made in Hindi and Bhojpuri, and won the 81st Academy Award for Best Documentary.Overview
Pinki Sonkar is a five-year-old girl who is living with a severe cleft lip in one of the poorest areas of India.
Not allowed to attend school at her native Rampur Dahaba village in Mirzapur, near Varanasi, and ostracised because of her deformity, Pinki lives a life of quiet desperation. By chance, Pinki's parents meet Pankaj, a social worker who is traveling village to village, gathering patients for a hospital that provides free cleft lip surgery to thousands of poor children each year through The Smile Train program.
The successful surgery was performed at G.S. Memorial Hospital, by plastic surgeon Dr. Subodh Kumar Singh, who along with Pinki attended the 81st Academy Award ceremony.
She was invited to toss up the coin in Wimbledon Final, 2013 in London.
