Youth Film Festival: New filmmakers vie for excellence

The competition will allow students to hone their skills and learn new techniques in filmmaking

LAHORE: As many as 10 films by students from several institutions across the country were screened at a local hotel on Friday as a finale of ‘Youth Film Festival’.

The film festival and competition was organised by Roshan Rahain, an organisation committed to engaging, empowering and celebrating the youth for their creativity. According to Roshan Rahain, founder and CEO Shaigan Azhar, the concept of hosting the festival came about with the realisation that children and youth represent more than 45% of Pakistan’s population. At the same time, the lack of awareness over new opportunities was the root cause of many problems including unemployment and drug abuse.

“We’ve witnessed that there is a lot of emerging potential with regards to videography and photography recently,” he said.



“While these fields are becoming business for talented people, we wanted other youngsters to know that it’s a platform they can explore and use to become successful professionals,” he added.



Speaking on the occasion, Canon Pakistan Country Manager Sarshar Ali said the nation was gradually becoming one of the prime markets for photo enthusiasts and to set the stage right, Canon is continuously associating with variety of photography/videography platforms and organising training sessions for amateurs as well as professional photographers.

Shaigan told The Express Tribune that films were one of the most effective medium to express, educate, improve confidence and cultivate social skills.

According to Shaigan, the project which began a month back received tremendous response of about 125 films entries, out of which 10 films were shortlisted, with top three winners receiving DSLR cameras.

He said the festival was not just a competition, since finalists would be offered with a chance to get paid work contract from partner companies (Canon, Leisure Club, McDolands) and media houses that funded the initiative.

“This is a unique collaboration of its sort and it allows students to hone their skills, while learning new things in a professional setup. We also received support and mentoring from ministry of culture and youth respectively and we’re planning to turn it into a nationwide youth film festival.”

He said the competition was open for all genres and themes such as music videos, drama or documentary on social issues. The films receive ranges from a minute long to 15 minutes long.

As a part of the preliminary process interactive and engaging filmmaking workshops were also organised for students. Three workshops were held, teaching basic film making techniques to advanced level at Ali Institute of Education.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 27^th, 2017.