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Hyderabad all set for children’s film fete
By Gautaman Bhaskaran
HYDERABAD, NOV. 13.
Hyderabad is all spruced up for the 11th International Children’s Film Festival, which opens tomorrow evening, amidst great hopes that this time the films would be enjoyable and that they would be screened in good theatres.
This time, the venue of the films are Meera and Sensation. For years; Sapna and Santosh had been the centres, and repeated complaints of poor projection there had been ignored by the Children’s Film Society, India, which is organising the fete.
“However, it is going to be different this time”, the festival director, Mr. S. Narayanan, assured this correspondent in the course of a chat here this morning.
Refreshing changes are indeed apparent. His room is right at the entrance of the festival office, indicating approachability and helpfulness, traits hard to come by among festival officials. In fact, he has even dispensed with the onerous system of one having to send in one's business card. Anybody can just walk in, a feature one sees in festivals abroad.
Unlike in the past, the fete will be held for seven days, instead of the usual 10, and will have fewer movies in its various sections.
There will be just 40 features and 65 shorts in all from 30 countries. Europe, North America, China, Japan and Iran have sent in their works. There are five pictures from Iran alone. The three films from India are: A.K. Bir’s “Nandan”, Santosh Sivan’s Malli and Virendra Saini’s “Kabhi Pass, Kabhi Fail”.
The Hyderabad Film Society recently conducted a “movie orientation course” for teachers and students.
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