Kids judge children's films at 9th International CHINH India Kids Festival

Actor Sandeep Kulkarni, who played the lead role in the hit Marathi movie - Dombivali Fast was also present to encourage and applaud the kids. One of the most acclaimed children film festivals of the world, CIKFF is accessed by over 2 million students from 1500 schools across India.

Awards for 9th International CHINH India Kids Film Festival 2015 in pre-school category that won CHINH Gold was ‘The Visitors’ from Australia.

In the early education category, winner of CHINH Gold was the film ‘Çhalk’ from India. In the teen category winner of CHINH Gold was the film ‘The Bounce’ from the United Kingdom and in the animation category, winner of CHINH Gold was the film ‘Playground’ from Netherland.

The highlight of CIKFF is that this is the only film festival in the world whose jury is comprised exclusively of children below the age of 15. The winners announced today in the ‘Kids For Kids’ category included ‘Nature’s Call’ from Coimbatore that won the CHINH Gold and the runner ups were ‘Dark’ again from Coimbatore which won CHINH Silver and ‘Apparent Unseen’ from Delhi bagged the CHINH bronze.

“The thought process of children is different from that of adults, so are their interests, attention span and emotions. What is entertaining for kids is often tiring for adults. So, the practice of adults judging children’s films are intrinsically flawed,” said Meenakshi Vinay Rai, founder of CHINH and the brain behind the festival. “If anyone are equipped to judge children’s films, it is the kids themselves.”

The 9th edition of CIKFF, presented by Arya Global, has ‘Hope’ as the central theme. The fest comprised of screening films, media literacy workshops, case studies and special forums. “While all the activities are exclusively centered around kids, for this edition we also introduced special forums like Forum on Innovation in Media Literacy for Principals and Forum on Media Literacy in Education for Educators,” said Bharat Malik, Chairman, Arya Global.

Another crucial feature of CIKFF is that it is perhaps the only forum in the world where not only films are made ‘for the children’ but also ‘by the children’.

“While we screen films by top children’s film makers, we also have films made by the kids themselves. This demystifies the media to them and cultivates an interest in filmmaking. For the past eight years, children from across India have participated in making child issue based and special films and some of these films have been surprisingly clever. One should never underestimate the imagination of children,” added Meenakshi Rai.

“When we started the fest nine years ago, programmes for children were not very popular in India, but in the last few years there has been a dramatic change. Popularity of Indian toon characters like Chhota Bheem, Mighty Raju and Motu Patlu, and shows like Pakdam Pakdai have created a new interest for the genre. In such a background, fests like CIKFF will play a big role by not only promoting new talent but also cultivating taste for cinema among the kids,” concluded Rai.