In an attempt to provide notable content to youngsters, The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in collaboration with Children’s Film Academy has launched a film festival for young adults and children.
Showcasing stellar cinema from a host of national and international directors, the program features an array of themes ranging from sibling rivalry to adolescence to education stance.
Speaking exclusively with The Morning Standard, K Rajesh, Mentor, Children’s Film Academy, said that he wanted to bring about a certain change in which children’s cinema is perceived in the country. “Mostly when we think of children’s cinema, we think of action movies such as Spiderman, Superman, Batman and so on, but many great works are left unnoticed. The movies streamed here are wide and varied and bring together a number of emotions and themes together,” he says.
Critically-acclaimed movies like Supa Modo by Likarion Wainaina (Kenya), Dhanak by Nagesh Kukunoor, Naal by Sudhakar Reddy (India), Boy and the World by Ale Abreu (Brazil) and A Nine and a Half’s Goodbye by Halina Dyrschka (Germany) among others, are to be streamed every Saturday at 11:00am, till November 7.
Along with the screening of films by acclaimed directors as well as video interviews with them. Scheduled to kick off on September 26, 2020, it will go on till November 7. Rajesh says, “The interviews are pre-recorded by us, where the directors broadly talk about their approach to the script, certain challenges to work with child actors and their inclination towards the subject among others.”
The idea of these screenings is also to relieve the stress and anxiety of children. According to Somya Arora, Deputy Manager, School Outreach Program, KNMA, “The museum has an important art education platform, and films play a major role in these. These days when everything is accessible to children over the Internet, we wanted to do something educational for the children. In times like these, when Covid-19 has surrounded us, a little positivity goes a long way.”
The festival will be accessible on KNMA’s social media handles, as well as the website.