NFDC collaborates with international film, TV festival for kids

Mumbai, July 18 (IANS) The National Film Development Corporation of India is collaborating with Amsterdam's Cinekid, which is a film, television and new media festival for children for its second edition of Children's Screenwriters' Lab.

The six projects selected for the edition include “Chuskit” (Hindi, Ladaki), “Malli” (Tamil), “The Girl and Autorickshaw” (Marathi), “Little Thomas and the Miracle of Life” (Hindi, English), “Beej” (Hindi) and “Krikus” (Hindi).

The three international mentors for the Children’s Screenwriters’ Lab 2016 will be Tijs van Marle, Jolein Laarman and Sytske Kok.

With the aim to cultivate original Indian stories specifically for children and adolescents, the platform will provide participants the opportunity to explore their stories through one-on-one and group sessions with international mentors.

The participants will also get a chance to pitch their scripts to producers and investors in a specially designed session during Film Bazaar 2016.

“NFDC and we talked through the possibilities of Dutch-India film cooperation. We concluded that children cinema should be the principle focus of this cooperation. NFDC had executed a very successful Children Screenwriters’ lab with a number of Dutch trainers. They wanted to expand on this,” Veysel Yuce, Program Manager Heritage and Turkey and India at Dutch Culture from the Dutch Culture Centre, said in a statement.

“The Netherlands produces world-class children content while India has just started to discover this part of cinema. Our goal is that the partnerships that are formulated in 2016 are continued in the years to come. Our hope is that they keep expanding on it and that India and Dutch filmmakers make beautiful films together,” he added.