School children light up the cinemas

Day three of the Karachi International Children’s Film Festival shows that the event is a recipe for success

KARACHI: The fourth Karachi International Children’s Film Festival (KICFF) is in full swing. The third day of the four-day-long festival saw a great number of attendees. With students from schools, such as Karachi Grammar School and Beacon Light Academy, attending KICFF at both its venues, Cinepax, Ocean Mall in Clifton and City Auditorium, Federal B Area, the festival has proven to be a recipe for success.

“The response we have received from schools has been overwhelming. Teachers at the Karachi Grammar School have even invited the organisers to their school to conduct a short filmmaking workshop for students,” says Omer Ijaz Khan, programme manager at The Little Art.



The first two timeslots, from 9:00am to 10:00am and from 10:30am to 11:30am, played movies for children between the ages of four and seven and eight to 12, respectively. This was followed by a 12:00pm to 1:00pm slot, which catered to children aged 13 and above.

Movies that were screened during that timeframe included The Tumblies, BZz, Lift Up, Cat in the Bag, Electric Soul, Captain Fish and Mr Hublot. The last slot of the day, which ran between 6:00pm and 7:00pm, has been well-received by audiences, as it is open to people of all age groups. The movies being screened during that time have also garnered praise from audience members.

The festival is a joint collaboration between The Little Art and Teachers’ Resource Centre. Khan, who is a member of the organising team, lauded the efforts of volunteers, Cinepax and Teachers’ Resource Centre for their unrelenting support in making the event possible. “We hope to be back next year and organise this event on an even bigger scale and bring forth some quality films for the audiences,” he comments.

Ibrahim, who was volunteering at KICFF, says that not only has it been a tremendous learning experience to help organise an event of this stature, but also enjoyable as volunteers got a chance to interact with younger audiences. “More than anything, what we as volunteers enjoyed the most was interacting with younger audience members and getting their reactions after they had watched the movies,” remarks Ibrahim, who is associated with the organisation C-Cube.



There has been one major change in the itinerary of the film festival. The 7:00pm to 8:45pm slot, which was previously reserved for screening animated feature-length films, has been cancelled. “We cancelled that timeslot as it was clashing with the cinema’s time for playing films,” clarifies Khan.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2014.

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