A rich night for best picture 'Slumdog Millionaire'

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"Slumdog Millionaire," the little film that overcame tremendous odds simply to earn an American release, won eight Oscars Sunday night at the 81st annual Academy Awards, including best picture.

"Most of all we had passion and we had belief, and our film shows if you have those two things, you have everything," said producer Christian Colson, surrounded by many members of the film's huge cast and crew.

It was a supremely unlikely success story.

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"Millionaire," which combines elements of Bollywood melodrama and documentary grit, features no stars.

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It's set largely among the poverty-stricken districts of Mumbai, India, and one-third of the film is in Hindi. Its initially reluctant director, Danny Boyle, is better known for brash British films such as "Trainspotting" and "28 Days Later." And the film almost went straight to DVD in America, thanks to the folding of initial studio Warner Independent Pictures (like CNN, it's a unit of Time Warner).

But the film's orphaned, poverty-raised hero, played by Dev Patel, overcomes his challenges to earn a spot on the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" -- not necessarily to win money, but to connect with his lost love. On the show, he's told that perhaps he is a figure of destiny.

"It is written," the show's smarmy host tells him, somewhat mockingly, after Patel's character aces several questions.

"Slumdog's" filmmakers were jubilant at the wins, which also included Oscars for best director (Boyle), best adapted screenplay (Simon Beaufoy), score (A.R. Rahman), cinematography (Anthony Dod Mantle), song, sound mixing and film editing.

Boyle jumped up and down as he accepted his award, saying he'd told his children that if he ever won, he'd bounce like Tigger from "Winnie-the-Pooh."

Rahman was equally appreciative.

"All my life I've had a choice between hate and love, and I chose love, and now I'm here," he said.