SIFFCY announces official selections for 2017 International Film Festival for Children and Youth, opens with Rima Das’s “Village Rockstars”
New Delhi: SIFFCY (Smile International Film Festival for Children and Youth) announced the final selections of films for this year’s film festival, to be held at Sirifort Auditorium, New Delhi during 11-17 December 2017.
More than 100 films from over 30 countries will be showcased in this year’s festival that includes feature films, Non- Feature, Shorts and documentaries, & films made by children. The week-long festival will open with award winning Indian film ‘Village Rockstars’, directed by Rima Das. Other film line ups are ‘The day my father became a bush’ a film about war through the eyes of a little girl, ‘Cloud boy’ a film about self – confidence, a joint production by Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, ‘Junod’ from Japan, “‘Nafas”, “Glasses” from Iran. 25 shorts films made by children from across the globe will be showcased in the “Take One” section. The festival will also include workshops on Film Making, Photography, storytelling, art design and other capacity building activities. Amrit Pritam Dutta, award winning sound designer who is also in the Oscar selection committee this year, will be conducting the sound design workshop.
The Indian production ‘Village Rockstars’ by Rima Das, has been chosen as the opening film for the week-long festival. The film has already received many National and International awards including Golden Gate Award and other two awards at MAMI & Best Director award at “The Golden Elephant” this year.
Mr. Jitendra Mishra, Festival Director – SIFFCY said,” This edition is going to treat the audience with recent hand-picked quality films, with assortment of various topics starting from gender equality, environment, family values, friendship, aspirations, dream, self-confidence & importance of education from across the globe. We have designed this very special program by travelling around the world & pushing boundaries, so that we shall bring the best of world cinema for our local children & youth”.
Speaking on this occasion, Mr. Santanu Mishra, Executive Trustee of Smile Foundation & Chairman – SIFFCY said, “SIFFCY plays an important role to sensitize children and youth through the medium of infotainment and create a lasting impact in their minds. On one hand we work with underprivileged children and their families and on the other hand under the concept of ‘Civic Driven Change’ we try sensitizing privileged masses particularly children and youth. Children and youth are the future of any nation and therefore it is very important to sensitize them from the very beginning. We strongly believe that films represent much more than entertainment; this is the most powerful medium to depict the reality and emulate values”.
This edition of SIFFCY will have a special focus on Dutch cinema, for which top-10 Dutch films have been curated and will be presented by Gert Herman from the European Children’s Film Association. Having received over 2000 entries from more than 100 countries, SIFFCY will premiere more than 100 meaningful films including feature films, short films, and documentaries from across the globe. SIFFCY will also highlight the issue of cleanliness, environment and climate change through a special selection of films and discussion forums – called SIFFCY goes Green, to create awareness on the environmental issues amongst children and youth. Apart from film screenings, every year SIFFCY also organizes film making workshops with an objective to engage, educate and empower our children and youth.
SIFFCY has been hosting various workshops in a special section called “Take One”. This year the workshop will be hosted by internationally acclaimed UK based organization- ‘Films without Borders’ with the idea of engaging and educating children on filmmaking. The other highlight of the festival includes a special delegation from Japan coming to present a film on ‘Love and humanity against war’ (A film on selfless service of mankind post World War II).