Children’s film fest on green cause opens in Bangalore

BANGALORE - Over 50 children’s films, including one scripted, directed and edited by 20 Bangalore teenagers, promoting enviromental issues will be shown during the two-day children’s film festival that began here Wednesday.

With “Action for Green” as the theme, the festival aims to educate children on the green cause, organizers of the festival said.

Feature films, animations and short films from 20 countries including India, Turkey, Iran, Serbia, Israel, Germany, Spain, the United States, are being shown, Grace Pinto, the managing director of Ryan Foundation, said at the inauguration.

The festival has been organised by Ryan International School run by the foundation here. It was inaugurated by leading Kannada film star Ganesh.

A group of 20 students of the school, in the age group of 13-14, have produced a 40-minute film “Green Dog - Nature inspires creativity”.

The teenagers have scripted, directed and edited the film to show the relationship between a man and the environment. It depicts loss of greenery and dying lakes in Bangalore.

“It was a great learning for us apart from the usual history and science subjects,” said V. Vindhya, who directed the film.

The teenagers made the film after learning the art and techniques of cinema at a workshop conducted by the school.

“The film tries to capture the sensitivity in relationship between a child and a tree and how deforestation impacts the thinking of the young generation,” said Pinto.

Ganesh, popularly called ‘Golden Star’ as his first film “Mungaru Male” (monsoon rains) was a great hit, said “cinema is an amazing medium to influence and guide children towards a better world”.

“‘Green Dog…’ is an impressive mix of creative talent and an innovative subject. We should definitely encourage young film makers as their ideas are fresh and innocent yet thought provoking” he said.