The curtain rose for the 11th edition of the 'International Children's Film Festival' on 27 January 2018 at the Shawkat Osman Auditorium of Central Public Library in the capital. With the slogan 'Future in Frames', the festival aimed to provide children with a basic idea on film, to create their interests in the media and to understand its role to build awareness on different social issues through entertainment. In this year's festival, around 1000 films were accepted from 58 countries. Amongst them, 220 have been selected for screening in five different venues, one of which the British Council. Among many other films that were screened, the highlights from the United Kingdom were ‘Govan Young’ (30 minutes) and ‘Bop The Biplober Blop’ (3 Minutes).
The festival was inaugurated by the chief guest; Honourable Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith MP, Ministry of Finance, Govt. of People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Honourable Minister Hasanul Haq Inu, Ministry of Information, Govt. of People’s Republic of Bangladesh and Barbara Wickham, Director Bangladesh, British Council also attened the inaugration ceremony. In an interview with the kids, Barbara said, “This is the only festival for children and young people, and the British Council is very excited to take the opportunity to support the programme.” Mostofa Monwar, Chairman of the Children's Film Society Bangladesh presided over the event. About 250 participants and audience were present in the inaugural programme, and the event became livelier for a very traditional welcoming session at the kick-off.
The British Council has been supporting International Children's Film Festival, since its inception in varying capacities. Currently, the British Council have agreed to work on a strategic partnership with Children's Film Society Bangladesh to expand their area of work and to reach a more diverse audience regularly. The festival is organised to support work in the arts industry, which focuses on three major themes: arts for social change, helping the development of future arts leaders and building better understanding between young people in the UK and Bangladesh through arts. As a part of this strategic partnership, this year the British Council supported Children's Film Society Bangladesh with a workshop by Mark Bishop of Natural Theatre Company UK titled “Zero Budget Film Making” for young film-makers during the festival. The workshop aimed to develop the unique idea of how creating films with no budget at all is possible with the help of only smartphones and can share their stories. Mark asked and guided the young-film-makers to shoot some ordinary objects with their mobile phones instantaneously. Afterwards, he analysed each of them and enlightened the participants about their shots can be made better. This exciting two-day long workshop came to an end with the re-creation of their first works.
When asked about the workshop experience, one of the participants said, “This workshop improved my knowledge a lot about instant film-making and shooting under time restraints”. Young children were awarded with crest and other incentives for their excellent creative work. This year, the winning title was “Violence Against Girls,” in which youngsters aged between 19 to 25 years raised awareness by making amazing films for the festival. The award ceremony was held on the closing day of the celebration on 2 February 2018.
More information about the festival can be found at-
https://www.britishcouncil.org.bd/en/11th-international-children%E2%80%9...