The Smile I was waiting for directed by Dr. Jaideep Chauhan

Cleft lip, a birth deformity of face, not only affects a child’s facial appearance but can also cause deep psychological trauma for parents. In some unfortunate cases, parents even abandon the child. Dr. Jaideep Singh Chauhan, an Indore-based Maxillo-Facial Surgeon, and his team have encountered three such children in the last ten years. The good news is that all three children were adopted by loving families after undergoing lip repair surgery.

This short narrative film is about such stories. It portrays the life-changing impact of a simple 45-minute surgery on a child born with cleft lip.