Malayalam film Article 21, Chinese feature Birthday Adventure win at Ahmedabad children's festival

The third edition of the Ahmedabad International Children's Film Festival (AICFF), which is slated to be held online on 24 and 25 December, has announced the list of winners. The Malayalam film Article 21 has won the Best Film award while Chungling Xu from China has won Best Director for the film Birthday Adventure.

This year the AICFF selected 49 films out of 109 entries from 33 countries to be screened in the Feature Film, Short Film, Documentary Film and Student Film categories.

The Best Actor award went to Lena for Article 21 while Han Mo from China was named Best Child Actor. Another Malayalam film, Lenin L U, won the award for Best Story.

The Telugu film Aaba shared the Best Short Film award with Nina & Valdai from Russia. Ashish Pandey and Sauvik Pandit were jointly declared Best Director for their respective short films Nooreh and The Inception Of Pursuit.

The award for Best Documentary Film went to Charlie Surfer from Norway. Ouria Heidary Oureh, director of the documentary film After The Incident, from Iran, was declared Best Director in the documentary category.

The award for Best Student Film went to Janvi Madabusi’s Marathi film Kapaat. Andrew Chan Possemato from Canada, director of The Butler And The Ball, received a special mention from the jury for being the youngest director in the line-up.

Speaking of the selection, festival adviser Uma Da Cunha said, “Film as a medium is one of the most accessible ways in which to reach the minds of children and gauge how they ingest, react to, and retain elements of what they see and evaluate in their individual, spontaneous way.”

Da Cunha believes that if used well and ingeniously, film as a medium of communication can be an invaluable teaching tool for all age groups, particularly the young, whose minds are still fresh and open to learning.

“We are encouraged by the number of entries we have received, that too on various subjects," festival director Manish Saini, a National award-winning Gujarati filmmaker, said. "This shows there is a bright future for children's cinema.”

Actress, writer, radio jockey and producer Aarti Patel, one of the members of the festival jury, said, “I am glad I am a part of this festival. As jury we don’t judge the films but appreciate their work. We are glad that despite the pandemic our festival is going on virtually. I am sure next season we will make it an offline event.”

Elaborating on the festival's vision, founder Chetan Chauhan said, “AICFF is one of the gestures we have started for society to give our children a feel of the world of children's cinema, especially when there is less focus on content for children. We want more people to pay attention to our future generation.”

The festival films can be viewed on the AICFF's YouTube channel on 24 and 25 December.