Lessons in film making for children at Int\'l Children’s Film Festival of Kerala

Thiruvananthapuram: As the International Children’s Film Festival of Kerala 2019 (ICFFK) progresses to its fifth day, the organisers are giving practical film-making lessons to selected candidates from the pool of volunteers, who had earlier applied to be presenters and anchormen for different screens.

The students are given lessons in various aspects like direction, screen-writing and acting. Three short films are being shot and it is supposed to be screened on the last day on May 16.

The five minute short-films are shot by the volunteers themselves, under guidance of Mr. Vivek and Mr. Akhil, who are the project and technical heads, respectively.

“This was a spontaneous idea. As some volunteers had to go for the shoot of the event’s theme song, we didn’t have much time to waste. So we quickly divided the volunteers into three groups and asked them to bring a one liner for a script. They came with the stories on their own. They concentrated centrally on the prevailing social issues and to give a message for the good cause of the society,” said Vivek.

Three short films are being made on anthology pattern. The name of the anthology is ‘Kilikkoottam’ and the three sub-plots are named ‘Oridathoru Pen Aankutty’, ‘Mahathwam’ and ‘Ottakkalla Nee’. Ab-ha, Anaswara and Reshma handle the direction and script while Madhurima portrays the protagonist for the first film.

Priya, Anjana and Anaswara handle both direction and script for the second movie and the final movie is handled by Aravind, Shivani and Archa. Music is by Malakhi and editing is done by Subin. The initiative is funded by the Kerala State Council for Child Welfare.

“Everyone is completely involved and super excited to participate in an event like this. It is a platform to learn about the technicalities of making a movie and to understand what happens behind a camera and how to handle them professionally,’’ said Aparna.

“The fact that the works are primarily done by the students, gives them an excitement which could be sensed from their words,” said Abha.