Celebrating kid’s creativity…
KidzCINEMA 2021, conducted the Award Ceremony to announce the Awards for the 2nd edition of this international children’s film festival with well-known Bollywood actor Kannan Arunachalam, as Chief Guest. With the festival’s theme ‘stories of positivity’, the festival received 1519 film entries from 93 countries.
KidzCinema2021 was kicked off on Universal Children’s Day, which is internationally celebrated on 20th November each year to promote international togetherness, awareness among children worldwide, and improving children’s welfare. The festival is available virtually for a month up to 19th December, through MovieSaints, the streaming partner. This festival is supported by CIFEJ (Centre International de Film pour l’enfance et La Jeunesse i.e. The International Centre of Films for Children and Young People).
The festival had 5 categories of competitions viz. Animation (Short), Live Action (Long), Live Action (Short), Kidz Made Films (Juniors), and Kidz Made Films (Youth). Out of these 2 categories of Kidz Made Films are the films made by children across the world between the age group of 6 to 20 years, while the earlier 3 categories are films made by adults for children.
The adult jury consisted of Alexandre Juruena, Anita Gupta, Azadeh Shakourirad, Deependra Mohora, Fahmidul Shantonu, Gabriele Brennen, Josep Arbiol, Marion Creely, Dr. Madhu Chopra, Monarose Sheila Pereira, Mohammad Shahmohammadi, NR Nanjunde Gowda, Premendra Mazumder, Ramesh Tekwani, Soultana Koumutsi, Sannette Naeye, Thuli Nyembe, Tehzeeb Khurana, T.S. Nagabharana, and Vinod Ganatra.
The child jury included celebrity child artist Dishita Sehgal along with Ihita Jain, Kyra Narain, Os Mishra, and Ojasvini Kumar. Another highlight of the festival was a performance by child artists Karman Singh Talwar, Purvahi Dhawan, and Fathima Neha.
Festival Director, KidzCINEMA, Praveen Nagda, informed, “It was very encouraging to see our 2nd edition attracting so many films from all over the world. It gives a platform to thousands of filmmakers to showcase their work around children’s films. In this edition, we not only enhanced our curatorial value but also engaged with global jury members representing all continents of planet earth. Our engagement with children was at the next level as this time we also introduced a child jury for two short film categories, making it a wholesome festival experience.”
Jury member, Documentary and short film Director Ramesh Tekwani says that, the KidzCinema2021 – the festival nomenclature completely belied the experience. Thought provoking, family oriented films guaranteed to make you think. Engaging films that intrigued and inspired, made by the usual, non-children and also a whole lot by children themselves. There was also a child-jury, selecting their choice of winners, with their own logic and rationale that quite belied their chronological ages ranging from 11 to 17. Cinema for children is indeed evolving and becoming peer engagement instead of being dumbed-down baby-sitter. I was impressed by the active participation of the children. This festival has films for children made by children. They covered various topics and were highly creative.
Another Jury member, Children’s Author, Monarose Sheila Pereira, also known as India’s Enid Blyton, exclaims, “The kids’ films were stupendous! I am amazed at their talent, technique and above all the thought process that the kids displayed in their films. Each had its own special social message. These are the films we must encourage our children to watch and learn from. Kids are extremely creative but we conceited adults love to shove our warped concepts into their minds. Guiding them is one thing but imbibing them with our twisted views is a big ‘no’. The films proved that the children are extremely creative and very well aware of the environment around them. A big thumbs up to all those who submitted their filmsto the KidzCinema 2021 competition. Honestly, we liked all of them. Congratulations and wish you all a bright and creative future.”
Animation director and scriptwriter, Azadeh Shakourirad, from Iran, also a Jury member, says that she is thankful to Kidzcimema for providing this astonishing opportunity to watch movies made by children around the world as a Jury member. She found it heartwarming to see children’s films made by children. The movies were so pure and thought-provoking and it was a real challenge to choose one as the best.“