The International Children’s Film Festival often known as ‘The Golden Elephant’ hosted by the Children’s Film Society, India and Government of Telangana will take place in Hyderabad, this year. The film festival will start from November 14 and will go on for a week.

The Festival comprises of the sections namely, International Competition, Asian Panorama, Children’s World- Non-Competitive Section, Special Screenings. The films produced between August 2013 to July 2015 are eligible for participation in Competition Section of the Festival. A Selection Committee of experts from the film world and the allied field will preview the films received for different sections of the Festival and will select the films for screening at the Festival.

Dr. Shravan Kumar, Festival Director said, “Festival will open on the Children’s day at SHILPARAMAM, the arts, crafts & cultural village at Hyderabad and will have screenings of children’s movies in multiple theatres across Hyderabad. In one of the many firsts, we have received international entries for our Little Directors concept that was introduced as an innovation in the previous edition of ICFFI.”

Mukesh Khanna, Chairman, Children’s Film Society India said, “I am sending my best wishes to the participating Children in 19th ICFFI. They are the future of our nation and such events allow them to receive exposure to the global culture.”

Many International Award winning films have been received by the CFSI for the 19th edition of the Festival. They include Maya the Bee (Feature Film) from Germany, Celestial Camel (Feature Film) from Russia, Pim&Pom, The Big Adventure (Feature Film) from Netherlands, Birds of Passage (Feature Film) from Belgium, My Skinny Sister (feature film) from Sweden, Rainbow (Feature Film) from India amongst others.

“We have received participation from 80 countries and as an additional step towards enhancing the international participation in the festival we also explored contacting many embassies for their participation in the 19th Edition of ICFFI. Many of these embassies like Sweden, Egypt, Mexico, Republic Of Armenia, Afghanistan and Switzerland etc. responded to our request and submitted 45 film entries for the festival, added Dr. Shravan Kumar, Festival Director, 19th ICFFI, Golden Elephant.

Recently, CFSI was also represented in Berlin Film Festival for exploring the possibility of marketing Indian children films abroad by being a part of the European Film Market (EFM).