Launched by His Highness Sheikh Dr Sultan Bin
Mohammed Al Qasimi, Ruler of Sharjah, member of the Supreme Council, together
with his wife Her Highness Sheikha Jawaher Bint Mohammed Al Qasimi, Chairperson
of the Supreme Council for Family Affairs and Patron of Sharjah International
Children’s Film Festival earlier this month, the first annual Sharjah
International Children’s Film Festival closed on the 5th of November,
after a ten day run and over 9,000 attendees in Sharjah,
Khor Fakkan, and Al Dhaid.
Starting October 21, the
festival took place for the first 6 days in Sharjah, and then moved to Khor
Fakkan for 2 days and to Al Dhaid for another 2 days. Some of the more popular
screenings included The 99, which was one of the feature films and
screened in JRCC and Grand Cinemas, is an animation movie about 99 youngsters
from across the globe, 99 ancient Noor stones and 99 superhuman powers. As the
mystical Noor stones emerge worldwide, Dr. Ramzi recruits a team of young
stone-bearers to fight evil, but a fearsome adversary, Rughal, who has been hunting
the stones for centuries, has different ambitions. Meanwhile,
Mustafa’s Sweet Dreams, screened in Grand Cinemas, is about a sixteen
year-old called Mustafa, one of
many young boys who study the complex art of making baklava. Mustafa dreams of
a life beyond the confines of the workshop, wants to be a baklava master
against the advice of his friends and family, and so makes a move towards the
big city to realise his dreams at his uncle's baklava workshop in Gaziantep,
Turkey.
In response to the huge
turnout, FUNN’s Manager and SICFF Director Jawaher Abdulla Al Qassimi talked
about the changes coming up and how SICFF plans on being bigger next year: “For
the upcoming SICFF 2014, we’ve already started putting things together. We’re
planning to launch a competition around SICFF 2014, set up workshops in and
around the festival, bringing in international guests and speakers, and a few
more surprises we’ll keep under wraps for now. Our goal is to always ensure
we’re pushing ourselves forward and changing for the better. We want to set
milestones every year.”
Announcing another related FUNN
initiative, she added: “Also, in line with FUNN's long-term aspirations, we are
proud to announce that FUNN has successfully launched its very own production
unit. FUNN is growing from strength to strength, year to year, inspiring young
talents to pursue their dreams in Media Arts.
Starting today, FUNN will
select the most phenomenal books and short stories by Emarati authors for young
readers, and transform them into series and films to proudly put Emarati talent
in the spotlight across the planet. FUNN will launch FUNN Tales short stories
for children and produce mini-series for youth and young adults. The stories
and authors are chosen based on their ability to view the world in refreshing
new ways, capturing the imagination of a young audience locally, regionally and
internationally.”
One of the highlights of FUNN
Tales will be the production of a television series based on a science fiction
series written by Noura Al Noman entitled Ajwan.
Al Noman describes the book succinctly:
“Ajwan is a 19 year old girl who narrowly escapes the destruction of her planet
and the annihilation of her race. She is alone without family or friends and
the universe considers her a refugee. The trauma awakens a latent ability in
her, Empathy, allowing her to sense the exact feelings of everyone around her.
While she struggles with the sudden news of her pregnancy, violent events take
place on different planets, abductions, suicide bombings, murders and
hijackings. These events affect her life and she has to face the choice of taking
up arms against a foe whose identity she doesn’t know. The book has a lot of
parallels with what has been happening in the Arab world over the past two
decades, but without being too obvious or pedantic. There is no Earth, no
Arabs, and no religions in this book.”
A series directly targeting the
themes of SICFF, it falls neatly within the categories of what FUNN has been
working to encourage: a wider imagination and the adaptation of global themes
to local cultures, bringing the superhero framework into the world of our own
children here in the UAE. Just like films and stories being screened at this
year’s SICFF, such as The 99, Ajwan looks to become a key success story and a wonderful
universe for our youth.
Besides Noura’s clear
collaboration with FUNN and SICFF, this year saw highlights like support from
various directors, especially local filmmakers, and participants from more than
30 countries. It also received attention from Nawaf Al Janahi, Khalid Al
Mahmoud, and Abdulla Hassan Ahmed, the directors of the movie Sabeel who
showed great support for the film festival. Mohammed Fikree, the director of
the animation movie Mad Camel
also gave the festival rave reviews.
The interaction between the
students and the films was tangible and charming. Some even came back to us
with talk about becoming filmmakers and wishing to attend FUNN’s workshops to
adapt the new media and practice it to showcase their own films for next year.
Amna Al Nuaimi,
from Jumeirah Model School expressed her appreciation for inviting the school
to the film festival to entertain them and to expose the kids to the new media
and a new digital world, in addition to the warm welcoming she received.
Furthermore, she thanked and praised the efforts of the organisers in making
this dream come to reality.
77 different schools from all
around the UAE sent their students on an SICFF 2013 tour in Sharjah, Khor
Fakkan, and Al Dhaid.
At its close, SICFF has
accomplished what it set out to achieve: it inspired creative discussion, it
set the groundwork for fantastic, honourable, and respectful artistic and
academic discourses about film, it brought children’s imagination to life,
giving them yet another outlet for expression, and it managed to do it all in a
very fun, engaging, and entertaining platform.
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