Hyderabad to host International Children's Film Fest in November

Mumbai: Children's Film Society and the Government of Telangana will host the 19th International Children's Film Festival (ICFFI), also known as Golden Elephant, in Hyderabad commencing on November 14.

The week-long 19th ICFFI has many innovations and firsts to its credit like previous editions, according to a release issued by Children's Film Society, India (CFSI) here said today.

This edition of ICFFI will feature a special section on Asian Films known as Asian Panorama.

The festival will open on the Children's day at Shilparamam - the arts, crafts and cultural village in Hyderabad and will have screenings of children movies in multiple theatres across

Hyderabad, Dr Shravan Kumar, Festival Director, 19th ICFFI, Golden Elephant, said.

"In one of the many firsts, we have received international entries for our Little Directors concept that was introduced as an innovation in the previous edition of ICFFI," said Dr Kumar.

The edition aims to involve government, bureaucracy, film fraternity, celebrities and other eminent people of media and arts from India and abroad towards enhancing children's participation in film making and thereby exploiting their creative faculties in nation-building, he said.

Prime Minister's favourite programme 'Digital India' will be the theme for this Festival and a series of events have been planned for the same.

Chairman of CFSI, Mukesh Khanna said, "I am sending my best wishes to the participating Children in 19th ICFFI. They are the future of our nation and such events allow them to receive exposure to global culture."

In the festival, many International Award winning films have been received by CFSI such as "Maya: The Bee" (feature Film from Germany), "Celestial Camel" (from Russia), "Pim & Pom-

The Big Adventure" (from Netherlands), "Birds of Passage" (from Belgium), "My Skinny Sister (from Sweden), "Rainbow" (from India) , Dr Kumar said.

"We have received participation from 80 countries and
as an additional step towards enhancing the international participation in the festival, we also explored contacting many embassies for their participation in ICFFI," he said.

Many of the embassies like Sweden, Egypt, Mexico, Republic of Armenia, Afghanistan and Switzerland responded to the request and submitted 45 film entries for the festival, the festival director added.

This edition of ICFFI has received a record entries of 1,204 films from 80 countries, the largest ever in any edition of ICFFI, he added.

There were 894 entries from 75 countries in the last edition organised in year 2013 while the 17th edition, the festival saw participation from 87 countries with 748 films.

The growing number of entries reflects the increasing popularity and recognition of the festival, he said.

It may be noted that recently, CFSI was represented in Berlin Film Festival for exploring the possibility of marketing Indian children films abroad by participating in the European Film Market (EFM).

Also, it was at the Berlin Film Festival where "Gattu" was given a Special Mention by International Jury at Generation Berlinale 2012.

"Gattu" was also the first commercially released film of CFSI.

CFSI's film "Pappu Ki Pugdandi" was also officially selected for the Toronto International Film Festival Kids 2015 edition that was organised from 7th to 19th April, 2015 in Toronto, Canada.

CFSI has been making films for Indian market since its inception and this would be a collective effort to reach market internationally and make much better cinema which would be entertaining as well as educative, Dr Kumar said.