Realising the zeal that youngsters have for social networking nowadays, several competitions are moving online. United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) have joined hands to organise a Youth Video Festival called The Plural+ International Youth Video Festival. It recognises the youth as agents of social change and invites them to address key challenges of their communities such as integration of migrants, inclusiveness, identity, diversity, human rights and social cohesiveness, both at local and global levels.
The online festival invited submissions of videos that are of less than five minutes duration in three categories of age – 9 to12, 13 to 17 and 18 to 25. The genre of the video could be anything, from animation, documentary and drama to music video and comedy. The entries for this year closed in June and the results are expected to be released on December 6. All the winners will be invited to present their work at Plural+ 2012 Awards Ceremony at the Paley Center for Media, New York. Each winner will receive a cash award of $1,000.
The initiative that started in 2009, has an Indian, KG Suresh, a film maker, on its seven-member international jury to judge the films.
The Director and Chief Editor with Global Foundation for Civilizational Harmony (India), Suresh says, “I see my selection as the growing recognition of roles that India can play in multicultural harmony as also the emergence of Indian youth and its potential that can be tapped through such a competition. Multiculturalism in European countries is a new phenomenon but with us, it is a habit. People go to other countries to research on multiculturalism while India is like a mini universe of multiculturalism.”
Suresh says that the competition is aimed at catching young minds. “The festival provides the youth with a platform to be open with their ideas. It is important that they don’t fall prey to extremist forces and xenophobic groups’ propaganda trying to whip up passions on ethnic lines when attempts to blame ethnic groups or minorities start. It is therefore important to see how the youth look at it.”
