The third edition of the ‘Smile International Film Festival for Children & Youth’ (SIFFCY) was inaugurated on 12th December 2017, in the esteemed presence of actress Raveena Tandon, along with Shantanu Mishra, Executive Trustee of Smile Foundation & Chairman – SIFFCY and Jitendra Mishra, Festival Director – SIFFCY. The weeklong festival started from today will continue until 17th December 2017 at Sirifort, New Delhi.
This year, apart from prestigious International juries, SIFFCY also have a young jury board where children have given their inputs in the selection of films. International jury consists Mr. Arend Agthe (Germany), a celebrated film maker known for Karakum and My Friend Raffi; Mr. Gert Hermans (Belgium), Chief-editor, European Children’s Film Association; Ms. Judita Soukupova (Czech Republic), Festival Director, Junior Fest, Ms. Michal Matus (Israel), Head of Education Department, Cinematheque and Festival Director, Tel Aviv Int’l Children’s FF and Ms. Chantal Bowen (Canada), a veteran film maker and Executive Director – Youth Media Alliance and National award winning film maker from India Anwar Jamal. The panelist for the film festival includes Ms. Laurie Gordon (Canada), a film-maker; Festival Director – Montreal Animation FF and Ms. Marlaine Cover (USA), Spokesperson & Trainer, Life Skill Parenting 2.0.
Speaking on the occasion, Raveena Tandon said, “I am so thankful to all of you to be here on the inauguration morning on the very own SIFFCY, it is something that is to be very proud of children that there is a film festival, that is only and wholly for children. I want kids to take a vow that whatever they will learn from here, they will follow in their daily life. Movies are the best media to educate our children, so I also want to thank SIFFCY which has acted as a media to communicate goodness to our children, as it is the right time to educate them what is good and what is bad for them”.
Santanu Mishra, Executive Trustee of Smile Foundation & Chairman – SIFFCY said, “I hope through SIFFCY, we will be able to channelize the energy of children and youth in a positive way and engage them proactively in the process of initiating social change. The idea behind SIFFCY is to design a rich mix of film programmes to build and support the growing interest in the infotainment industry. This includes programming that cultivates an audience for World Cinema while supporting filmmakers in career development, so that this powerful medium can be explored in a more focused manner for disseminating serious yet effective social messages”.
“SIFFCY is a unique platform to encourage and support the growing interest in meaningful cinema among young, aspiring, independent people without any favoritism. This year we have been fortunate enough to have many international partners, who have extended their support towards our initiative to entertain, engage, educate & empower the children & youth through various cinematic experiences & related capacity building workshops. We have scheduled Panels discussions & forums on ‘Environment & Climate change’, ‘Road Safety’, ‘Like Skill development’ and Role of Cinema, apart from the regular technical workshops by industry experts on Film-making, Cinematography, Sound design, Production design, Storytelling & Photography” added Mr. Jitendra Mishra, Festival Director – SIFFCY.
SIFFCY is a reflection of Smile Foundation’s efforts to use films as a medium for sensitizing masses, especially children, and youth, and engaging them proactively in the process of bringing Social change.
