Do our children take their cinema seriously? Oh, very - you are likely to say, while trying to wrestle the TV remote out of their hands. And then there's Fridays and VCDs. But even you will give up the fight when the schools step in to take your kids to a film show. And not one, but almost 10 flicks. But don't faint out on us just yet, these movies are part of their education program, so you needn't worry at all.
The Children's Film Society is organizing a unique Film Appreciation Program for school children and, as a part of it, is showing many Indian and a few foreign films. The list of movies scheduled is as below:
Indian-
(1) Bhakta Prahlad - Silent Movie/1926/D G Phalke/6min
(2) D G Phalke, The First Indian Film Maker - Silent Movie/1965/Compilation Film/19min
(3) Lanka Dehan - Silent Movie/1917/D G Phalke/5min
(4) Kallya Marden - 15min/1980/D G Phalke
(5) Raja Harishchandra - Silent Movie/1913/D G Palke/20min
Foreign-
(1) Glass - Netherlands/1958/Bert Haanstra/Col/10min
(2) Great Train Robbery - Luminar Brothers/10min/B&W
(3) Lumier Program - Silent Movie/B&W/10min
(4) Opening Speech - Canada/1960/Norman/7min
The Film Appreciation Program is being conducted in 3 batches, from January to December 2001. Each batch, consists of 4 students and 1 teacher each from around 50 schools (government, aided and private), making it a total group of 200 students and 50 teachers. The Department of Education, APSFDC and the Jawahar Bal Bhavan are associated with this program.
The Program for the 1st batch was inaugurated on 9th January 2001 by Ali Ghomi, Consul General of the Islamic Republic of Iran, at Hyderabad. The films screened on that day were Mazid Mazidi's "The Last Village" and Ibrahim Ferdosh's "The Key", which were both well received.
The authorities are inviting all the schools to take part in this unique program. But the schools have to send a selected team of 4 students and 1 teacher for this program, which will continue until April 2001. The students have to be selected based on their previous participation in extra curricular activities such as debating, essay writing, drama and painting.
Please contact Bh S S Prakash Reddy or N K Dhaveji at 763-5669/763-6214 for further details.