INVC,,
Mumbai,,
One of the best film festivals of the country, the 17th International Children’s Film Festival, India, popularly known as The Golden Elephant was held in Hyderabad recently. Over 175,000 children from around the country watched the movies screened in 13 screens across Hyderabad. The festival had participation from 37 countries across globe and 150 films were selected for the competition.
The festival that was inaugurated in the wake of children’s day had the opening ceremony presented by Actress Dia Mirza and many shows performed by children. Amongst the many graceful acts that were presented, the welcome act by Deepika Reddy troupe, breathtaking act by Prince Dance group –winners of a reality show, balancing act of little girls and jam session of renowned percussionist Sivamani with his child prodigy Stephen Samuel, enthralled the audience.
The event marked the presence of prominent personalities from Tollywood like Nagarjuna, Ramanaidu, Ram and Samantha, Sarika with her daughter Akshara. The prolific Indian Director and screenwriter Shyam Benegal was also present for the fest. Nandita Das, the Chairperson of Children’s Film Society attended the event along with her husband Subodh and son Vihaan. Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Kiran Kumar Reddy, Minster of State for information and broadcasting, Government of India, Shri Chowdhury Mohan Jatua and Information and Public relation Minister Ms D K Aruna were also present for the event.
The festival had the presence of eminent personalities as its jury members which included Renowned European writer Joke Van Leeuwen from Netherlands, Producer Rock Demers from Canada, Director and producer Marjan Riahi from Iran and Xiaojuan Zhou, President of Delphis Films that distributes children’s content across the globe. Amongst the Indian jury were Actress Seema Biswas and Sarika, Directors Murali Nair, Rahul Dholakia and Shaad Ali, acclaimed Film Editor Sreekar Prasad, veteran cinema and theatre Actor Dr. Mohan Agashe and Padmashree Dr. Yella Venkateshwar Rao.
The festival brought a child like zeal and enthusiasm in and around the city of Hyderabad. The Chicken Briyani crazy city had served vegetarians like me with spicy Chilly Pakodas, Kheera Raita and desserts made of Apricot.
Talking about the 6 day event, with the 3 screens that were built there was also a huge open space for children to play and various entertainment facilities were provided to them in this open space. It is truly admirable to see films screened on these artificial screens that were erected. This experimentation of the CFSI earned appreciation not only from the Children, Youth, and Adults but also from the Government of Andhra Pradesh. Seeing the popularity of these Theatres the Government of Andhra Pradesh has decided to keep these theatres for at least a year.
On day one though there were no ramps for handicap children, the matter was considered and ramps were built the very next day. Press conferences were held daily and all 6 days marked the presence of the Nandita Das, the Chairperson of CFSI and Sushovan Benerjee, CEO CFSI and festival director.
During the screening though there were issues relating to projection and sound but since the setup was new it was tolerable. However, sound problems persisted with European and Chinese films, which was not the case with Indian films. But in spite of having no technical issues, movies like Stanley Ka Dabba, I am Kalam, Chiller Party did not witness the presence of its producer, director or any other member from its cast or crew during its screening. Raj Zutshi, who plays the history teacher in the movie Stanley ka Dabba represented director Amole Gupte.
The event attracted the best of media attention but was unable to pull in the celebrity crowd. Few movies got negative feedback from the media but it came from those newspapers whose journalists were hardly ever present for any of the screenings. Though the festival was attended by Superstars of Tollywood like Nagarjuna, Sarika, due to the lack of big celebrities from Bollywood the event failed to grab the interest of the national media. International film festival of India, Goa so as to get the national media coverage brought Superstars like Shah Rukh Khan to inaugurate the event while Kangna Ranaut was present for its closing ceremony. So if in the coming years CSFI works harder it will be able to draw more celebrity presence for the event.
This 6 day festival was summoned by distributing awards at Global Peace Auditorium in 15 categories. Amongst the versatile talents that were showcased Iranian film “Alafzar” (Meadows) won the most prestigious Golden Elephant for the Best feature film, International. Indian movie “Chiller Party” won the Best Film, India, from the adult as well as from the children jury. Amongst the other winners were “I am Kalam”, “Vihir”, “Lost in Africa” from Denmark and “Crocodile strikes back” from Germany. Yet another German short film “Nineandahalf’s Goodbye” won award both from the adults and children’s jury. The movie that earned my respects was the Chinese movie “The Star and the Sea.” The movie was about a mother’s struggle to get her son educated. However, the movie came under the media scanner owing to a controversial scene of attempting rape. According to me, though the scene was made controversial by the media but at the end of the film the prominent highlight was the relation and the struggle of mother and son. The scene so gossiped about will be hardly recalled by the audience at the end of the film.
The press conferences held by the Chairperson Nandita Das addressed various issues raised by the media and clarified them to everyone’s satisfaction. Issues were handled maturely and hence cannot be termed as irresponsible. Children of this era are matured enough to understand many aspects of life which the world tries to hide from them.
According to the CEO CFSI Sushovan Banerjee, Hyderabad will be the permanent abode for the festival which will be back in the city of Char Minar every two years.
Governor of Andhra Pradesh E.S.L.Narasimhan along with Chief Secretary Pankaj Dwivedi and Minister D.K. Aruna were present for the closing ceremony. Along with the political personalities the stars of south like Actor M. Nasser, Indian Idol Sreeramachandra and Singer Usha Uthup were also present. The closing ceremony was made memorable by unforgettable performance given by the versatile singer Usha Uthup.
To sum up, in the words of Shri E.S.L.Narasimhan, the festival truly has showcased Hyderabad city at the international level.
