HYDERABAD: The 3rd Interna­tional Children’s Film Festival was opened on Friday at a ceremony held at the University of Sindh, Jamshoro.

According to a press release, the two-day festival has been organised by the Institute of Art and Design of the university in collaboration with The Little Art, a Lahore-based organisation.

Inaugurating the festival, university Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Fateh Mohammad Burfat expressed pleasure over the way the students in attendance shared ideas regarding the cross-cutting themes projected in the films that were screened on the occasion.

He said the festival was an appealing way to motivate and inspire awareness among the masses, especially the youth, about critical and pressing social issues.

He said it was very crucial for children and youths to learn various facets, experiences and challenges of life. Such activities also inculcated in them the acumen to overpower the otherwise jeopardising situations, he added.

Dr Burfat said well-known director and actor Syed Yar Mohammad Shah belonged to Sindh, but his talent was recognised initially in Lahore and later at various international forums.

Sindh Board of Revenue secretary Munawar Ali Mahesar said he had seen students graduating from the University of Sindh and later occupying privileged and powerful positions in almost all walks of life, including bureaucracy, civil service of Pakistan, entrepreneurship, education and politics.

“There is only one condition to be successful in life; that the students should work very hard,” he said.

“Films have been selected for the festival from different genres by international film-makers to highlight violations of human rights around the world and raise social issues,” he said.

Director development of The Little Art, Umer Aijaz Khan, said films were an effective medium through which the extremist attitudes among youths could be erased easily. “The festival has been organised at Sindh University with the efforts [of] my friend Saeed Mangi consecutively for the third year after holding it successfully in 2015 and 2016 at the varsity,” he said.

“It has also become an international competition of quality films for children and youths. It took almost a year to collect films from 20 countries,” he said and added that he along with his team would be at the SU whenever they were invited.

Speaking at the ceremony, director and actor Syed Yar Mohammad Shah said Sindh and music were inseparable. “I mostly worked in Bollywood and stayed everywhere in Pakistan, but my soul lives in Sindh,” he remarked, and urged university students to try to make short documentaries highlighting social issues.

Later, the film festival showcased some 60 films — including three films prepared by the students of the institute and the rest from abroad — selected from among 500 received from 20 countries to suit viewers of all age groups, especially children.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2017