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The maiden edition of SIFFCY (Smile International Film Festival for Children and Youth) was successfully held from December 21-27 at the Siri Fort Auditorium in New Delhi. Bringing world cinema to the children and youth of India, this one-of-its-kind film festival is aimed at celebrating the power of films beyond their entertainment value, as a medium to engage young minds positively and inspire them to lead a better life. The festival got an overwhelming response from the audience as more than 10,000 children from the city turned up and the films ran to packed auditoriums.
The week-long festival showcased 80 critically acclaimed films made for and by young people that have won laurels at International film festivals including Berlin, Toronto, Cannes, Tokyo, Cinekids, and many more. The films were selected through a meticulous process from over 10,000 entries received from more than 100 countries. Besides films, the festival offered a wide array of interesting activities for the children including professional photography and film making workshops, sand art animation workshop, puppet shows, magic shows, etc.
Maneka Gandhi, Minister for Women & Child Development, Govt. of India, was the Chief Guest at the opening ceremony, and was joined by noted filmmaker and actor Tigmanshu Dhulia as the Guest of Honour. Actor Jimmy Shergill attended the Award Ceremony as Special Guest. Film Industry stalwarts and National Award winning directors Nagesh Kukunoor, Hansal Mehta, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Santosh Sivan, Jahnu Barua, and Resul Pookutty were on the advisory board of the festival. National award winning film critics Saibal Chatterjee and Utpal Borpujari were also part of the core team of SIFFCY.
“Birds of Passage”, from Belgium, France, directed by Yves Ringer and Olivier Ringer, was awarded as the Best Feature Film. The award for Best Direction went to Yury Feting from Russia for “Celestial Camel” and for Best Actor to Ramesh & J. Vignesh from Inda for “Kaakka Muttai”. For the full list of awardees, please visit www.siffcy.org.
The festival’s success was made possible with support from our various partners. Hershey’s Syrup, Iris, Indira Group of Institutes, Ultra, Burger King, Children’s Film Society of India and Times of India came on board as Associate Partners. Leading international film organisations BFI (London), Cinekid (Netherlands) and Buster (Denmark) joined in as Festival Partners. The Official Partners were Creative Hub (Audio-Visual Partner), Pioneer (Outdoor Partner), Stardust (Magazine Partner), MSL Group (Outreach Partner), Khushi (Ambient Media Partner), Fly Frog (Kids Décor Partner) and Indian Institute of Photography (Photography Workshop Partner). Other partners were Sepia, Flair, Alliance Française, Click, Film Freeway, Festhome, Without a Box, BOL, Instituto Cervantes, Taipei Economic & Cultural Centre, Shamiana, Leaf, Buzz in Town, Live Media, Monastery, Wild Geese Foundation, Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology, Luminosity Pictures, Lemming Film, Taiwan Cinema Toolkit and Goethe Institute.
