The sixth edition of the International Kids Film Festival (IKFF) has been taking place in Bengaluru since November 14 and has attracted thousands of students from all over the country. This event has been organised in association with the Army Wives Welfare Association and a total of 75 award-winning films from 20 countries and 15 languages are being screened at the festival.
According to the organisers, over 26,000 schools are participating in the two-week long festival. Two films, Spirit of the Forest from India and Abby from the USA was screened on the inaugural day,
Syed Sultan Ahmen, the founder of IKFF, who also works with Film Pedagogy as his medium of education, said that at this point in time, film is the most impactful method. “A well-made film can communicate as much as a full-fledged book. A film brings storytelling, audio-visual, emotion and entertainment.”
He went on to explain how films have been relegated to entertainment and it is the effort of IKFF and LXL Ideas to bring it to education, by way of screenings and workshops. One such being with Lachlan Pendragon, Academy Award Nominee for his animated film, An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It.
The festival screened the new film of R. Balki, Ghoomer, who was invited as a juror for the event. “A festival of films that speak to children does not mean kiddish films but those that appeal to children and are imaginative and magical.”
The festival gathers films created from all over the globe, with a team of curators watching each one of them. “We put ourselves in the shoes of the child and thought about how they would apprehend it,” Anne Doshi, Head of Program, told The Hindu.
Neha Jain, the Artistic Director of IKFF founded this Festival with Syed Sultan Ahmed with the idea of bringing films to children who don’t have the time to do it themselves. “We want children to go beyond a Leo, a Kabir Singh and Marvel movies and we want them to become discerning audiences.”
The festival began in 2017 with a mindset of changing the education industry and wanting to do it through a medium that will stay relevant through the years. Ms. Jain said that the way a child’s mind works is hard to unravel and that such a medium has an impact on them. “We have not even begun to use cinema as an educational tool and kids today are more audio-visual than ever before.”
IKFF introduced this festival, the “first-of-its-kind”, to schools across India, wanting to provide a new method of learning, “It is a good experience to know about something that we do not study at school”, said a 9th grade student who attended the event. They provide opportunities for students to learn filmmaking and potentially win its filmmaking competition and become part of the children jury.
