From Gujarat village to Oscars: How Bhavin Rabari became face of Chhello Show

When filmmaker Pan Nalin set out to cast the lead role for his Gujarati film Chhello Show (The Last Film Show), he wasn't looking in acting schools or film institutes. He wanted a real village boy from Gujarat, someone whose innocence and rawness matched the character he had written, a nine-year-old named Samay, whose life mirrored Nalin's own childhood memories of falling in love with cinema. After auditioning nearly 3,000 children from across the region, Nalin found what he was looking for in Bhavin Rabari, a boy with absolutely no prior acting background. Bhavin was born in 2012 in Vasai village in Jamnagar, Gujarat, into a family with no connection to the film industry. His father, Alabhai Nangesh, drives luxury coaches between cities in Gujarat, and his mother, Nathiben, is a homemaker. Bhavin belongs to the Rabari community, a pastoral community traditionally associated with cattle herding in the region.