This was the first time 14-year-old Minil Chandran was taking a trip outside Kerala. But he has seen and done things most other children of his age would not even imagine. Minil is an actor, an assistant director, an aspirant director and he has just come back after interacting with the likes of Aamir Khan and Darsheel of ‘Tare Zameen Par’. There is more to come.
Minil is a happy returnee after a week-long Hyderabad trip, and giving reason to the Kalady Government High School to be proud of him. He was selected to take part in the 16th International Children’s Film Festival (Golden Elephant-16) held in Hyderabad from November 14 to November 20.
Ask him about the trip and Minil, a Class IX student, would happily recount his experiences. ``On the first day, we were taken to a IT park there. And from the second day, we were shown educational movies meant for children. Then we were taken to the iMax theatre there. Finally, we were taken to a workshop where actor Aamir Khan interacted with us.’’
But Aamir Khan told them a story in Hindi and Minil could not follow it.
However, Minil, who dreams to be a director someday, would give you a list of movies in all languages that he liked at the festival. ``I liked the ‘The Letter to the King’, ‘Under my Garden’ and ‘The Lost Rainbow’. Most of them were animation movies.’’
The students were also taught the basics of animation at the hotel they stayed. Children from 38 countries across the world had taken part in the film festival.
Minil, who got to interact with students from other countries and states, also saw their dance performances. ``Actors like Darsheel and Ashish Vidyarthi were also there’’, Minil added excitedly.
Five students from Kerala took part in the Golden Elephant-16 festival.
Apart from Minil, the other four who went were Karthikeyan of Govt Sarvajana HS, Sulthan Bathery; Mubasheer of Govt HSS, Vettathur, Wandoor, Malappuram; Varun of GHHS Puzhathi, Kannur and Abhijith of GHS, Thiruvur, Wandoor, Malappuram.
L. Rajan, Deputy Director of Education, who accompanied the children along with two teachers, said that the kids were able to connect with different civilisations and understand movies much better. ``We are trying to bring filmmaking into the curriculum in schools,’’ he said.
Swaminathan, a teacher at the Kalady Govt School, recalls how the students of the school got very little attention before. ``This was a proud occasion, because this was the first time students from Kerala were attending the Golden Elephant International Film Festival,’’ he said.
The school came into the limelight after two movies, made by its students, were screened at the QEPR film festival for children. One film ‘The Gift of God’ got the Best Jury award and its director, Amritha K.S., a Class X student, got the Best Director award. Minil was the assistant director of the film and also played a role in it.
The students got more accolades after the movie was screened at the Short Film Fest-09 for Schools, organised by Sign Art & Cultural Charitable Society, Kochi. Amritha was this time awarded for the Best Screenplay and Vibin A., another student of the school, bagged the Best Second Actor award.
Now, the film is to be screened at the Guruvayoor Kerala Films Audience Council film festival.
trivandrum@expressbuzz.com