The 9th edition of the Smile International Film Festival for Children & Youth: SIFFCY was hosted from 17th to 23rd April 2023 at the iconic Sirifort Auditorium Complex, New Delhi and simultaneously in 50+ different other locations across India. More than 100000 children and youth took part in the weeklong film festival all together. This edition screened 150 acclaimed and award-winning films sourced from over 50 countries. In addition, various workshops on climate change, road safety, filmmaking, photography and lifeskills were being conducted for children for free.
This year the festival hosted the prestigious European Children’s Film Association Award and also the acclaimed CIFEJ Award (only Indian organization to host the award) again. In addition, SIFFCY will host the much-admired Film Critics Circle of India Award as well. In a special segment 10 Czech Animations made by young filmmakers of the Tomas Bata University in Zlin were showcased in collaboration with the Embassy of the Czech Republic in New Delhi. The collaboration with the Delegation of the European Union to India brought the best of European cinema made for children and youth for the Indian audience during SIFFCY 2023. Further association with SCHLINGEL International Film Festival, Germany did result in 10 recent handpicked German films captivating the young Indian enthusiasts.
15 different awards in different categories were announced by professional as well as young juror during the award ceremony of SIFFCY 2023 on 19th April 2023. Here is the list of the major awards.
- International Competition, Feature Film – Best Feature Film (Children): Even Mice Belong in Heaven (Czech) , Czech Republic, France, Poland and Slovakia
- Best Feature Film Award (Youth): Oskar & Lilli, Austria
- Best Actor Award: Reyaan Shah and HiranyaZinzuwadia for Gandhi & Co (Gujarati), India
- Best Story Award: Even Mice Belong in Heaven (Czech), Czech Republic, France, Poland and Slovakia
- Best Short Film Award: Why Did the Giraffe’s Flower Fade (Persian), Iran
- Best Next Gen Award (Films made by Children): The Most Boring Granny in the Whole World, Germany
- ECFA (European Children’s Film Association) Award for best film: Even Mice Belong in Heaven, Czech Republic, France, Poland and Slovakia
- CIFEJ Award – (International Centre of Films for Children & Young People) for best film: Tales of Franz, Germany
- Film Critics Circle of India (FCCI) Award for best film: Tales of Franz, Germany
- Best Director: Manish Saini for Gandhi & Co (Gujarati), India
- Best Short Film (Children) by Young Jury: Witch Fairy, Belgium
- Best Short Film (Youth) by Young Jury: You Have Many Parts, Germany
Key Objective of SIFFCY:
To Engage, Educate, Encourage & Empower young minds through GOOD CINEMA and film related workshops.To promote GOOD CINEMA that is meant for children & youth. To bring together high quality, entertaining, multi‐cultural cinema for children & youth. To cultivate understanding of other cultures, lives & experiences through the medium of film. To catalyze critical appreciation and creative pursuit of cinematic art amongst children & youth. To support the work of talented and dedicated children & young film‐makers and encourage the exchange of ideas amongst them
THE ORGANIZATION
Smile Foundation is a national level development organization directly benefitting over 15,00,000 children and their families every year, through more than 400 welfare projects on education, healthcare, livelihood and women empowerment, in over 2000 remote villages and slums across 25 states of India. Smile Foundation is also a widely respected brand known for its continuous innovations and continuously strives to sensitize the privileged mass across the globe so that they come forward, take on the social problems of the world as personal challenges and fight them back. And in order to grab their attention, Smile has been developing films on its core areas, which are creative, innovative and are a balance of the right content and the right quality. Smile Foundation have already produced more than 60 short films/documentaries including the critically acclaimed feature film ‘I Am Kalam’. Smile Foundation envisions taking it to the next level so that the exploration of this powerful medium can be done in a more focused manner for disseminating serious yet effective social messages, and designed a special film platform SIFFCY devoted to a greater appreciation of meaningful cinema made for young people, SIFFCY (Smile international film festival for Children & Youth) is a not-for-profit initiative of the foundation to Sensitize, Engage, Educate & Empower Children and Youth through meaningful, educational films and film related capacity building workshops. First edition of this annual film festival was inaugurated by then Union Cabinet Minister for Women & Child Development, Mrs. Maneka Gandhi along with several other dignitaries from the industry in 2015. Since then SIFFCY has been attracting thousands of filmmakers, industry professionals and Cinephile from across the world and more than 30000 young spectators take part in the weeklong film festival every year in New Delhi.
SIFFCY@SCHOOL is the outreach program of the initiative to reach out to a larger young audience in 100s of different locations across India through film screenings, interactive workshops and film related various activities organized in collaboration with like-minded schools, institutions and local organizations. The target is to take SIFFCY to the doorstep of at least 10,00,000 children and youth every year.
SIFFCY TERMS & CONDITIONS FOR THE ON GROUND EVENTS
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For more information kindly log on to; www.siffcy.org | www.smilefoundationindia.org