NEW LONDON, Conn. — Sometimes it doesn’t matter if hundreds or even thousands of miles separate like minds and similar dreams. Take for instance, childhood friends David Kahn and Dwight Schultz. They were attending Connecticut College and Syracuse University respectively, when they decided to make a movie as a joint project for their senior thesis — in India. They spent the summer of 2005 writing a script about an American student and his experiences making a movie in India, but once thesis advisors approved the final version, they faced the daunting task of shooting a film in Mumbai on what amounted to three months rent.

In the first of what turned out to be countless moments of inspiration, they logged on to Craigslist.com.com and started advertising in India for actors and crew. Almost immediately, Kahn and Schultz received e-mails from scores of strangers thousands of miles away interested in signing on to the project. They explained that they were college students shooting a movie with no budget to speak of, and would not be able to pay anyone, but people kept writing.

At the same time, Kahn and Schultz began to shoot scenes in the United States. Schultz spent the last weeks of summer editing the script, and Kahn concentrated on licensing the music he wanted to use and got a Sony music executive to license the use of a popular song “Suraj Hua,” crucial to the plot, for free. Other music was written by friends Ryan Perez-Daple in Los Angeles and Xander Singh in Acton, Mass., and the rest was pulled from royalty-free archives.

The story follows Mike, a college senior played by Schultz, who is cajoled by a professor into “volunteering"’as a cinematographer for a Bollywood film. Mike knows just enough about the genre to declare his distaste for the idea and arrives in Mumbai, surly, jet-lagged, and monosyllabic. The film’s director is Rahul, a charming and passionate young filmmaker played by Shubham (no last name), an aspiring actor living in Mumbai. Rahul is kind and understanding of Mike’s state of mind.

When Mike reacts insensitively to a piece of dialogue about eyes and sunsets, he immediately earns the wrath of Preeti, the female lead played by actress Maya Singh, another childhood friend of Kahn’s. Preeti quits, Rahul steams, and Mike realizes he’s got a lot to learn about himself, friendship, and the demands of his chosen career.

Naturally, there are complications, but it doesn’t take Mike long to fall in love with both Mumbai and the leading lady, and eventually — perhaps inevitably — they dance on the beach and the cliffs as light pours through Preeti’s veils, and wraps itself around the characters.

While Schultz played Mike, Kahn directed and produced the film. The cast and crew — all of whom had been scouting locations, obtaining signatures, finding lodging and caterers — worked 16 to 24 days to shoot the film in two weeks. They rose before dawn in order to get to locations before Bombay traffic peaked, shot into the evening, packed up their equipment and crawled into bed by midnight. Four hours later, they were up again.

The driver, who did not speak English, was the only member of the project who was paid anything at all, but he was up even earlier than the crew, driving around Bombay long before the sun rose, picking up members of cast and crew in his Tata Sumo.

Kahn had been to India for a two-week vacation before even conceiving of “The Bombay Project,” but he says his already broad worldview became even more expansive when he attended Connecticut College and became friends with the institution’s many international students. His burgeoning interest in India led him to create a double major in film studies and Asian studies, and he spent a semester of his junior year studying in Mysore, a city near Bangalore in southern India.

Even with some history of the country and the remarkable dedication of the cast and crew, events seemed to conspire against “The Bombay Project” at every turn. In order to get permission to shoot Mike’s arrival and departure scenes at the airport, Kahn and the crew spent six hours sitting outside of the airport manager’s office until they were given documents and a strict shooting window between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. Even with documents that allowed them to film in the airport, they were still approached by airport security who told them their documents were not official. The production manager diverted them with detailed questions about the forms in question, while Kahn and crew frantically shot as much footage as possible, sometimes hiding cameras under their coats. “All the people you see in the crowd at the airport are just unsuspecting people going about their business,” said Kahn with a smile.

Three days before the end of the shooting schedule, Maya Singh, became very ill and was confined to bed. For two days, everything stopped and Kahn and Schultz were forced to ponder the unimaginable: All the work, the combined efforts of all these new friends, would not result in a movie. In a flash of Bollywood-like inspiration, however, they rewrote the entire end of the film and finished shooting in time to catch their flight home.

Back in Connecticut, Kahn went into the editing lab and spent six straight days putting the project together. He brought a sleeping bag to the studio and ate when friends showed up with food. The result is a 56-minute feature with a strong ending, which earned him the Oakes and Louise Ames Prize, Connecticut College’s highest academic honor. It is awarded to the senior who completes the year’s most outstanding honors project.

Singh has regained her health and is pursuing a degree in musical theater at the New School in New York City. Schultz works as a production assistant on commercial shoots and will join Morgan Stanley in New York in September. Between gigs as a lighting designer — his “other” life — Kahn is preparing for the debut of his film at Lincoln Sudbury High School on August 18 and will settle in as a full time lighting designer at the New Repertory Theater in Watertown, Mass. in the fall.

This is cache, read story here