200 films to be screened at Children’s Film Fest, Ranbir Kapoor to inaugurate the festival

Film festivals in India are just growing bigger and better with every passing year. After the recently concluded Mumbai film festival left audience spell bound with brilliant collection of movies both from India and abroad, it’s now time for the 18th International Children’s film festival, in Hyderabad to take center stage. And lined up for aficionados is a mind-boggling array of 200 children films sourced from 45 different countries across the globe. And guess what? India’s heartthrob and youth icon, Ranbir Kapoor will be in attendance to inaugurate the festival. Throwing more light on the wide array of movies to be screened in the festival, Dr. Shravan Kumar, the Festival Director and CEO of Children's Film Society said, "This year we have received films from 20 countries that were not represented in the 17th ICFFI. These countries are Austria, Chile, Cuba, Lebanon, Ethiopia Ghana, Jordan, Malaysia, Uruguay, Puerto Rico, Tunisia, Slovenia, Senegal and Scotland among others. The festival will see over 1.5 lakh child delegates from across the nation.” Another highlight of the festival would be the special workshop that will be conducted on the Rights of Child Actors. When we asked Amole Gupte, the chairman of CFSI to elaborate on the same, he said, “Our endeavour this time is to see that the rights of children working in media are adequately safeguarded. There is no specific law on the same in our country. It’s important to see that a child actor doesn't lose his precious time or days at school when he is shooting.” The festival, this time, will have four competitive sections, ‘Competition International Animation’', ‘Competition International Live Action’, ‘Competition Shorts’ and ‘Competition Little Directors’ where total 54 international and national films will compete against each other for the prestigious Golden Elephant Trophies. The best film would bag the Golden Elephant trophy and Rs 2 lakh in cash and the second best feature will bag the Golden Elephant Plaque with Rs 1 lakh in cash. Anime movie ‘Goopi Gawaiyya Bagha Bajaiyya’ will be the opening film of the festival.