The 9th Madurai International Children Film Festival (MICFF) 2012 began with the screening of ‘The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore’ in the open air theatre of Victoria Edward Hall here on Tuesday.
The inauguration also coincided with the 35th year celebration of ‘Ýadharthaa,’ one of the organisers of the event every year. “Films will be screened in nearly 60 schools in Madurai and neighbouring districts. This year, we will also be screening 30 new films and a vast majority of them are animated movies,” said R.S. Rajan, festival director and Yadharthaa secretary.
Five films in Tamil, and one each in Malayalam and Marathi would be among Indian movies to be screened at the festival, he said. Films from France, Turkey, Hungary, Indonesia, Japan, China and Switzerland would also be screened, he added.
Inaugurating the festival, S. Tamilselvan, writer and president of Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artists Association said, “Most schools have made students mere mark scoring machines, and there is no room for creativity. Exposing them to animated movies will help rekindle their creativity.”
I. Ismail, general secretary of Victoria Edward Hall, spoke. Later, ‘The Old Lady and the Pigeons,’ an animated short film in French was screened. There will be public screening of the films at the Victoria Edward Hall at 6 p.m. from December 4 to December 9. The film festival is organised by Yadarthaa and Tamil Nadu Children Film Society, and is supported by Federation of Film Societies of India. Admission is free. The films to be screened for the public include, ‘Bes Vakit’ (Turkey) on Wednesday, ‘Tale of Night’ (France) on Thursday, ‘Janose Vide X’ (Hungary) on Friday, ‘Lesker Pelangi’ (Indonesia) on Saturday, and ‘Hugo and Josphine’ (Switzerland) on Sunday.
