New Delhi, 9 December 2019: The fifth edition of the Smile International Film Festival for Children and Youth (SIFFCY), supported by BookASmile, opened here on Monday with a screening of award winning Belgian feature film “Binti,” which marks the directorial debut of filmmaker Frederike Migom.

The film centers on a 12-year-old girl from Congo living in Belgium who enjoys vlogging and aspires to fame. But when police raid her home to deport her and her father, she finds her dream almost crushing. Escaping the police, Binti meets Elias and the two become friends. While Binti helps Elias to vlog about his ‘save-the-okapi-club’, she hatches the perfect plan: her dad has to marry Elias’s mom, so they can stay in Belgium.

Jitendra Mishra, Festival Director, SIFFCY said, ““There are more than 250 million immigrants in the world which is almost 3.5% of the global population and it’s an important topic to discuss among the upcoming generation. We want our children to be aware of such global issues and cinema is the right medium I believe. Binti is an emotional story of immigrant father and daughter that talks about this serious topic of immigrants in a lighthearted and entertaining manner.”

The film which has travelled across festivals around the globe has beenwinning several awards and accolades including the prestigious UNICEF & Grand Prix award.

Santanu Mishra, Executive Trustee of Smile Foundation and Chairman, SIFFCY, said in a statement: “It is an extremely important subject told from the children’s perspective. Year on year, it is our endeavor to being in best of world cinema to India. With such a majestic range of films across genres we are sure to keep our young audiences engaged all through the week.”

Other big award winning films which will be premiered during the festival are Phantom Owl Forest by AnuAun (Estonia), Fight Girl by Johan Timmers (The Netherlands), Inventing Tomorrow by Laura Nix (USA, India, Indonesia, Mexico), Underdog by Seong-Yun OH and Chun-Baek Lee (South Korea), Measure of a Man by Jim Loach (USA), Too Far Away by Sarah Winkenstette (Germany), Here My Village by Abas Aram (Iran), Musk by Vinod Kamble (India) among others.

For the fourth year in a row, the film festival is supported by BookMyShow’scharity initiative – BookASmile. Commenting on the collaboration, Farzana CamaBalapnde, Head – BookASmile said, “We believe in giving underserved beneficiaries the best entertainment experience always. This partnership with Smile Foundation is an extension of our mission to bring powerful and meaningful cinema for social change to 5,000 beneficiaries from NGOs and marginalized communities, in this case, children and youth.”

Also present at the launch were John Stevenson – Director, Kung Fu Panda, Mohsen Chiniforoushan – Secretary-General of CIFEZ, Felix Vanginderhuysen – Founder, Secretary-General of European Children’s Film Association, Julia Jarl – Festival Director, BUFF Film Festival, Sweden, MitsuoTahira – Founder and Director, Tokyo Kinder Film Festival, and Mohsen Chiniforoushan – Secretary-General of CIFEZ.

Like previous years, SIFFCY brings global exposure through good cinema to the young audiences. The week long film festival will have film making workshops, panel discussions with an objective to engage, educate and empower our children and youth.

The festival, spanning from December 9-15 will take place at the Siri Fort Auditorium in New Delhi.

https://www.ecfaweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ECFA-Journal-02-Binti-interview.pdf

https://kwassafilms.com/binti/?lang=en

For more information on SIFFCY 2019: http://siffcy.org/siffcy-2019.html

For media queries/ interviews:

Contact: Jaya Shroff: 9818194294 / [email protected]

About SIFFCY:

SIFFCY (Smile International Film Festival for Children & Youth) is a special film platform devoted to a greater appreciation of meaningful cinemas made for children and youth which can bring change in the society by showcasing those films, supporting emerging filmmakers, recognizing the pioneers and leaders of the similar industry and by promoting the diverse perspectives of Good World Cinema. It caters to young people (aged 6 to 25) with just about every level of interest in film, whether to watch and enjoy, create their own work or take things a stage further and find out more about a career in the film or television industry.

The week-long annual Film Festival takes place at the Sirifort Auditorium, New Delhi, India during December every year. It attracts filmmakers, artists, Industry professionals and audience members from across the globe.

About Smile Foundation:

Smile Foundation is a national level development organisation reaching out to more than 600,000 underprivileged children, youth and women directly every year through more than 250 welfare projects on subjects such as education, healthcare, youth employability, and women empowerment across 25 states of India. Adopting a life cycle approach of development, Smile Foundation focuses its interventions on children, their families and the community.

Website – www.smilefoundationindia.org

About BookASmile:

India’s leading entertainment destination BookMyShow launched its charity initiative BookASmile in 2014 with a vision to support special causes and enrich the lives of the less fortunate across India through entertainment-led experiences. BookASmile invests a lot of energies to create an inviting community to ensure that they can be privy to opportunities, by incorporating into their lives, activities and experiences from across genres like Cinema, Sport, Theatre, Music & Arts. The BookASmile initiative has been integrated within the BookMyShow App and website. With BookMyShow’s vast customer base, the initiative has been raising funds for special causes whereby every consumer can choose to contribute from Re.1/- per ticket – to a maximum of Rs. 5/- per transaction towards charity. For more information, please visit: https://in.bookmyshow.com/donation/