KARACHI: The students coming out of the Cinepax theatre at Ocean Mall on Tuesday in neat rows couldn’t be made to keep quiet. They all wanted to discuss what they had seen.

“I’ve never been to such a show at such a place before. I loved it,” Aryan Lashari, a first grader of Beaconhouse School System, said smilingly.

“I wanted to see a complete movie but they only showed us clips from different movies. I think I’ll go home and ask my mother to get me DVDs of the movies I saw in bits and pieces now,” said Adeena Saleem, a class four student of Haque Academy.

Mahnaz Ali, a teacher chaperoning the children, also smiled and said: “They were not expecting to be watching clips as with the mention of going to Cinepax they naturally assumed that would be watching a full-length one-and-a-half hour movie.”

And the ones going into the theatre for the next slot spoke about what they were expecting to see. Rania Khan, a class eight student of Education Bay, said she was expecting to be shown a boring documentary. “I’m sure I’d be bored. But our teachers would love that, won’t they?” she rolled her eyes.

Hammad Nisar, a class nine student from the same school, said the thought he and his classmates would be made to watch animated nursery rhymes, including Humpty Dumpty. “But then it would be great fun if we are shown Namaloom Afrad,” he said.

This was the scene at the three-day 4th Karachi International Children’s Film Festival (KICFF) 2014 co-hosted for children of registered schools around Karachi by The Little Art and Teachers’ Resource Center (TRC).

The KICFF 2014 received a record-breaking 1,160 film entries from 66 countries this year, including Bazil, Netherland, Canada, Poland, Slovenia, the US, Finland, Afghanistan, Germany, the UK, Czech Republic, France, etc. In all the festival showcases 58 films from 28 countries, including several films by Pakistani filmmakers. The films have been carefully selected and are suitable for children and young people of all age groups.

Talking about the philosophy behind the KICFF, festival director Shoaib Iqbal said: “We all learn through real-life observation, especially children whose very base of learning depends on observation. That’s why I believe films are such an amazing learning instrument because they allow children to be involved in so many experiences all at once, through amazing stories from around the world, through characters and colours, and beautiful music. All of this gives children a chance to enjoy themselves as well as learn about life.”

“The Little Art is a not-for-profit organisation that seeks to promote art education and provides entertainment opportunities without any discrimination to the children of Pakistan. This enables Pakistani children to keep up with ever evolving world cultures, experience rich and diverse issues through international educational films. It also helps nurture tolerance and open their minds to new ideas,” said Omar Ijaz Khan, programmes manager at The Little Art. He also said that each age group was shown different shows according to their age and understanding.

Seema Yasmin, a TRC volunteer, pointed out that just watching the clips, put together carefully for each age group wasn’t all. “Later, the teachers will also hold a discussion based on what they saw with the children in the classroom,” she said.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2014