Jaipur children unleash their creative talent through Open Forums and Workshops at NCFF

It was a day to remember, not only for me, but for some of the best, young creative talents of Jaipur.

Curtains came down on the National Children’s Film Festival (NCFF) with a fitting finale with a bunch of enthusiastic and creative children, who participated in the film making workshop, making a 1.5-minute film ‘My Friend’.

The Jawahar Kala Kendra, which was full of life with children from various schools taking part in the Open Forums, Workshops and Kids Carnival for the last three days, proved that, cinema, no doubt, is a powerful medium through which we can effectively inculcate family values among children and make them aware of social issues.

The Open Forum on the third day of NCFF, which had an august team of speakers, deliberated on the theme “How has the various media and communication platforms covered various issues related to children? What more and different things can be done in this direction.”

The observations and discussions by eminent panelists/speakers in the Forum were very interesting.

Prof. Dr. Sandeep Sancheti, President, Manipal University, Jaipur stressed on the need for enhancing and promoting the thought processes and creative talent of children. Anshu Harsh, Founder of Rajasthan International Film Festival made an important observation that children of today are aware of the good and the bad, and the media should keep this in mind.

Kalyansinh Kothari, Secretary General, Lok Samvad Sansthan felt that it’s the responsibility of all of us to bring about a change in the society while the media just highlights the need for a particular change. Rajendra Bora, Former Chief of Dainik Bhaskar, said that media is an effective medium to educate children, but it also depends on how we make use of it.

Manan Suman Chaturvedi, Chairperson, Children’s Commission, Rajasthan Government; Daksh Garg, Founder, Blabworld; Prof. Ujjwal K Chowdhury, Media & Education Consultant; Former Dean, Symbiosis & Amity Universities; Prof. Avinash Tripathy, film journalist including myself were present at the Open Forum.

Earlier during the day, noted film producer Ashok Kaul conducted a film making workshop for children, where he taught them the tricks of film making. He also introduced them to cinematography, direction, handling the camera and even acting skills. It was a wonderful sight to see those curious children learn the art of film making.

CFSI will edit this short film and showcase them at the National and International Children’s Film Festivals in the future.  Looking at the success of both the editions of NCFF, I am eagerly looking forward to hold the children’s film festival at district-level.

The three-day National Children’s Film Festival, held in the Pink City of Jaipur, has further strengthened our resolve to reach out to more and more children in different states and districts through children’s films and to bring out their creative talent in the art of film making.

I take this opportunity to thank my colleagues at CSFI and the officials of Government of Rajasthan, who, in the last few months, worked day and night and supported us in making this film festival a grand success.