Hyderabad is gearing up for hosting the International Children’s Film Festival 2013, a biennial event, that will be held here from November 14 to 20.
Preparations are in full swing for the festival being organised under the aegis of Children’s Film Society of India, Mumbai and State Government. As many as 196 selected films from 48 countries will be screened during the festival.
Minister for Cinematography D.K.Aruna said here on Thursday that 894 entries of feature and short films produced after 2011 were received from 72 countries. Of them, 196 were short listed, including a Telugu feature film ‘Minugurulu’. Of them, 53 films will be under the competitions category.
About 400 child delegates from India and 150 national and international adult delegates would participate in the festival for which Hyderabad is the permanent venue since 1995 festival.
Awards
In the competition category, Golden Elephant trophy plus cash prize of Rs.2 lakh would be given away to the best film, director, screen play, animation feature and other categories and Silver Elephant trophy plus cash prize of Rs.1 lakh to runner up in the above categories.
Lalitha Kala Thoranam would be the main venue for the inaugural and closing ceremonies. Prasad’s Imax theatre with three screens would be the main festival theatre and festival films would also be screened at seven cinema halls across the city and Indira Priyadarshini and Thoranam auditoria.
Cultural programmes and seminars and workshops would be part of the week-long festival. The cultural events would be held at Thoranam from November 15 to 19 and seminars and workshops on film making, animation, script writing and film appreciation at the Jawahar Bal Bhavan.
Ms. Aruna said that one or two child prodigies would be felicitated daily during the festival. She launched a website www.icffihyd.fdc.in which would provide all details of the films and the festival.