Boot Cake, The (ATOM Study Guide)

In the small desert town of Adipur in north-west India, Charlie Chaplin is treated as a god. Every year on the anniversary of his birth, the town celebrates this icon of silent cinema. The Charlie Circle of Adipur – a group of businessmen, shopkeepers, teachers, engineers, students and even a three year old pre-schooler and a doctor who prescribes Chaplin movies for medicinal purposes – organise the birthday bash and invite the local community to embrace their passion for the silent film star.

Five years ago a chance remark about a Chaplin impersonator working in Japan in 1917 set Australian filmmaker Kathryn Millard on a quest to understand the curiously widespread appeal of Charlie Chaplin. She found his ghosts and reincarnations in sophisticated cities, back street slums and theatres in countries as widely disparate as Mexico, Brazil, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Australia. Her curiosity took her to India where she met Charlie impersonators Viswajeet Devnath, Prevan Kamate and Dr Ashok Aswani, and was invited to become an honorary member of the Charlie Circle. Millard even got to bring the birthday cake to the legend's birthday anniversary.

Millard is now a self-confessed Charlie tragic. Her documentary The Boot Cake is a mad, wonderful and poignant story of ordinary people finding inspiration and hope in the comic genius of Charlie Chaplin.