Global Connect Program

International kids film fest at NPS campus:

Guwahati, November 24, 2015: The ninth edition of the International Chinh India Kids Film Festival got off to a flying start with participation of representatives from countries like Italy, Sweden, Russia, Brazil and South Africa at the premises of NPS International School in the city on Tuesday.

The venue of the festival turned into a sea of children as kids, both foreign and domestic in colourful dresses attended the inaugural function of the three-day-long festival.

Children from different schools of the city judged foreign films in three different categories, namely pre-school (children between 4 to 6 years), early education (children between7 to 12 years) and animation category (children between 13-17 years) during the first day of the festival.

As a jury, the students exposed to art of media appreciation by viewing, evaluating and critically examining children media content entered in the festival from across the world.

“It is a wonderful opportunity to reinforce our skills of critical thinking, creativity, communication and decision making. It’s a lifetime opportunity for all of us,” one of the students, who were the members of the jury, said.

Earlier in the day, NPS International School founder director, JN Das, welcomed all the participants of the film festival.

Participating in the inaugural function as special guest, prominent film director Gautam Bora spoke on the importance of organising such festival to create a better understanding among the citizens of the world.

“Films always help the common people to understand about the society well. If we organise international film festivals and that too exclusively for kids, this will definitely help the future world community to understand about the world in a better way,” he said, while delivering his speech.

Stressing on the need of maintaining world peace and harmony through films, the film director of national repute expressed his serious concern over the present condition of Assamese films industry. “The present condition of the Assamese film industry is not encouraging at all. However, the initiative taken by NPS International School to organise such a mega event will definitely help to bring back the lost glory of the Assamese film industry,” Bora said. He also elaborated on how to make an environment of universal brotherhood through organising such international kids film festival.

Lauding the effort of NPS International School, Guwahati in organising the event, Natascia de Rosa, representative of Giffoni Film Festival, Italy, said that international issues like terrorism, etc., can also be addressed by organising film festivals. “Students are getting enormous opportunity to exchange their views during the 3-day event. Through the screening of the films, participating children will definitely get an opportunity to know about what is happening in the world,” she said.

Film personality of international repute Elena from Russia also urged the participating students to see foreign films to at least to know about their neighbourhood.

In his welcome speech, founder director of NPS International School, Guwahati, JN Das, thanked the participants and other film personalities for participating in the programme and reiterated his commitment to provide proper platform to students to get international exposure. “Apart from improvement in academic front, NPS International School, Guwahati is committed to provide students of the Northeast to provide adequate platform to get international exposure,” he said.

Participating the programme as chief guest, Sanjeev Das, Regional Officer, CBSE appreciated the move to organise the film festival in Guwahati. He also requested the students to witness the foreign films for their better future.

The festival is being organised by NPS International School in association with the CHINH Early Education Web Channel. Meenakshi and Vinay Rai, founders of Chinh Early Education Web Channel, along with Mridul Laskar, Assamese film director, and all the foreign delegates and students were also felicitated during the programme.

Earlier in the day, NPS students performed Assamese folk dances to welcome the foreign delegates in the festival.

‘Children of Conflict’ steals the show at NPS fest

Guwahati, Nov 25: “Children of Conflict”, a short movie prepared by a Kashmir-based production house on the impact of terrorism on children, hogged limelight during the second day of the 9th edition of the International Chinh India Kids Film Festival being held on the premises of NPS International School, Guwahati on Wednesday./p>

The 13-minute film, director and screenplay writer of which is Majid Imtiyaz, is dedicated to late Sameer Gaffat War, who died of a mortar shell explosion which he and his friend had found accidentally in a pile of rubble. Not knowing what it is, they started playing with it and this is where it exploded. This Film "Children of Conflict" is dedicated to awareness of all the victim children residing in different conflict regions on the globe. As soon as the screening of the movie starts at the Brahmaputra Auditorium of NPS campus, over 500 students that assembled at the hall to see the screening of the movies were spellbound. The entire auditorium wore a pin drop silence and the kids were glued to the screen only. Jury members, both Indian and foreign, were all praise of the movie and vehemently spoke against terrorism.

With humor and sorrow, the atmosphere at the NPS auditorium was swinging like a pendulum throughout the day as over 50 films were screened there. Be it the films like Bounce or Mariya, Heer etc., the students jury members experienced a unique experience at the film festival venue.

“We are very much happy that the students are appreciating the films screened here. Through the film festival we want to create best of the best budding film personalities which can contribute to the betterment of the nation,” founder of NPS International School JN Das said.

Apart from the films, the participants of the film festival also had experience of different kind when they witnessed kids in the chairs of the jury members. For the first time in the film history of the Northeast India, kids were judging films in this film festival. Students of II to XII standard were the members of the jury during the second day of the film festival and they were enjoying their work. Anujit Baruah, a Class II student and Himangshu Singh, also of Class II, were enjoying their work very much. “We are enjoying the movies as well as our new responsibility. It’s a new concept and we are all enjoying,” they said. Same is the reaction from young jury members like Anish Gupta of Class IV, Nasimul Islam Khan and Sai Girish of Class VI.

Workshops on various topics were also conducted during the day on Wednesday. Participating in a workshop on film making, Assamese film maker of international repute Gautam Bora spoke elaborately on various aspects of film making. Urging the future filmmakers, who were attending the workshop, to see films made by directors of Argentina, Sweden, Finland and even Myanmar, Bora stressed on the need to see the paintings of world famous artistes, read book, especially story books, visualize elements and try to acquire the knowledge on sound to be a good film maker.

“Globalisation has disseminated the smaller culture. Good films are those which are closer to your heart,” he said during the workshop which was fully packed with children.

Internationally renowned photographer Barbara Di Maio conducted one of the workshops on “The Study of Colour through Photography”. This workshop focuses on the importance of colours in photography. During the classes the children learnt the rules of composition and the use of colours. They studied the “colour wheel” and the concepts of complementary and opposite colours in order to take harmonious and beautiful images. They also learnt how to tell a story through photography and at the end of the course they organised a small exhibition of their work.

Ksenia Shorokhova of Russia attended the workshop on “How to use Social Media effectively?”. The workshop aimed at to equip the participants on how to write for social media platforms, role of social media in our lives, managing social media effectively, promoting an initiative or project and using hash tags etc.

Russian expert Sergei Dvoryanovu attended a workshop on “7 Steps to Heavens!”

During the workshop, Dvoryanovu aimed at to engaging young minds in discovering spiritual elements using 7 hit Beatles (God, Friendship, Love, Work etc).

Earlier in the day, the visiting students were given training on water sports and students in large numbers attended the programme.

Foreigners interact with city students, discussed Pizzas to Pithas

‘Chalk’, ‘Bounce’ emerged as best films of NPS int’l fest

Guwahati, Nov 26: Indian director M Navin Kumar’s touching short film “Chalk” and UK filmmaker Rory Lowe and DC Barclay’s film “Bounce” were declared as the best movie in Chin Gold in Early Education category and Chin Gold in Teen category respectively on the concluding day of the 9th edition of the International Chinh India Kids Film Festival held on the premises of NPS International School, Guwahati on Thursday evening.

Earlier in the day, the visiting foreign students were taken to some city-based schools to interact with the local students. During their discussion in each school, issues relating to culture, food habits, films, education, students’ life were came to the fore. Right from Pizzas to Pithas and Ferari to Bollywood, lots of interesting topics hogged the limelight during the discussion. The Italian students also shared their feeling how the Pizzas available in India are very much different than that are made in Italy. On the same way, the city students also shared their feelings in the education system, dances of Bollywood etc.

The three-day-long mega kids’ film festival, where best films were selected by children as jury members, came to an end with some dazzling cultural performance by the students of NPS International School. Students in both colourful and traditional dresses performed various modern and folk dances, including Bihu, which mesmerized the audience, including the foreign visitors.

Bounce, a 10-minute short film, is a heart-warming tale of a five-year-old girl’s trials and tribulations trying to attain her Hearts desire; the Bounciest Ball in the World Ever! Of course reality is never quite the same as one’s desire.

Navin Kumar’s “Chalk” is about a child’s beautiful expression of his emotions and need for mother’s love. The movie shows a young boy collecting chalk and drawing a picture of a woman whose love he seeks.

Both the films managed to get appreciation both by the jury as well as the visitors who witnessed the screening of the films on NPS premises on Thursday morning.

Apart from organizing workshops on various topics attended by experts from foreign countries, the visiting students from abroad to the film festival were also taken to some local schools, both government and private, as part of a cultural exchange programme. The visiting foreign students were given chance to interact with the local students in various city school, including Betkuchi Kigh School, Modern High School, Kahilipara and South Point School. Students were overwhelmed to take part in the programme.

“We thank all the stakeholders of the film festival to make it a grand a success. Children got the opportunity to select films and interact with foreign experts. The workshops attended by the foreign experts turned to be very much helpful for the attending students,” said JN Das, founder director of NPS International School, Guwahati.

During the concluding day function of the festival, Daya Ram Rajbongshi, Additional Secretary to the Government of Assam and SL Baruah, DCP were present as guests.