Lights camera action: Filmmaking workshops for kids this week

The workshops will be held at six schools across the city

LAHORE:

The Little Art (TLA) founding director Shoaib Iqbal said on Sunday that the organisation would begin holding several filmmaking workshops for 120 children at six schools this week.

TLA aims to provide children with learning opportunities by using the medium. The initiative is a part of the organisation’s trademark project, the Lahore International Children’s Film Festival.  The workshops will start this week at six schools. They will be held at Lahore American School; the junior branch of the Lahore Grammar School, Johar Town; Garrison Army Public School and College for Girls; Lahore College of Arts and Sciences; and Trust schools of the Al Mashal Foundation and the Door of Awareness.

Iqbal said TLA had been inspired to organise the workshops after receiving several submissions by local students for the Lahore International Children’s Film Festival. He said some of them had been showcased at the festival. Iqbal said the organisers had announced an inter-school filmmaking competition this year to promote filmmaking. He said TLA had taken the initiative to provide gifted children with a platform to display their talent.

Iqbal said the organisation had received 24 submissions out of which it had decided to screen nine this year. He said the festival was scheduled to begin on November 10 and finish on November 15. Iqbal said it would be held at Fortress Stadium Cinepax. He said 170 films would be showcased at the festival. Iqbal said the process had helped the TLA to identify talented schoolchildren who were keen to learn about similar art forms.

He said the organisation had announced the national inter-school filmmaking competition this year. Iqbal said 1,000 schools had been invited to participate in the contest. He said only 24 entries made it to the final stage. Iqbal said the response had been encouraging as some submissions had come from institutions where children had not been exposed to the craft.

TLA officials said the workshops were being held to polish the skills of children who were inclined towards filmmaking. He said they had already showed their interest in the craft by submitting entries. Iqbal said the organisation would strive to increase their interest in filmmaking through the workshops. He said the TLA would encourage some of the students to re-shoot their submissions after the workshops finished. Iqbal said the initiative would be limited to Lahore for the time being.

He said gadgets like smart phones had made filmmaking easier for amateurs and children. Iqbal said exposure to international films made by children for their peers helped them understand novel concepts better. He said enabling children to develop content for films was new to schools. Iqbal said while private institutions had the facilities to support the concept, academic understanding of the notion happened to be limited.

International Film Festival

“Films not only help you convey emotions, culture and people, they also connect you with the world,” said Bisma Khan, 13, one of the Young International Jury members from Pakistan in the 28th International Festival of Film and Video for Children and Young Adults at Isfahan.

She and 14-year-old Jahanzeb Khan from Quetta represented Pakistan at the festival.

They were sent to the festival by The Little Art under the Lahore International Children’s Film Festival (LICFF).

Khan, a student at KIPS School in Lahore, was selected for the festival through an open call by the TLA.

As many as 45 applications were received from across the country. “I have always been interested in film-making, especially short movies and documentaries…. I have never been able to make my own films owing partly to lack of mentoring.”

Khan, who spent 10 days in Tehran and Isfahan, said children there were better versed and aware of arts concepts than those in Pakistan.

“Children there have a greater understanding of the visual medium. This helped us learn a lot about film-making.” As a jury member, Khan had to watch screenings, comment on them and rate them. “

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2014.