UNITY IN DIVERSITY SHORT FILM INTER-SCHOOL COMPETITION

Cinema & Children

We have become a visual society, receiving a large part of our information from moving images, television, video, computers, and the Internet. Teaching our children how to interpret these images has never been more important!

Cinema has truly played a major role in changing our society. Patriotic movies make us remember to love our nation. Good comedic movies have treated many patients through laughter therapy. Adventure movies have given us a sense of adventure to explore new possibilities. There are many more! In our society, there are many practices and traditions that are based on ignorance and have withheld progress. The rigidity of the caste system, untouchability, dowry system, and purdah system have done enormous harm to our society.

Cinematic films can do a lot to eradicate these evils. The cinema can be used as an instrument to help people get rid of obscurantism and also to guide them along the right path. It can help remove ignorance from our society. Not only this, but several much-needed social reforms can be introduced and brought about with the help of the cinema.

The cinema exercises a great influence on people’s minds. It has great educational value. It can achieve splendid results in the field of educational expansion. There are certain subjects, such as science and geography that can be more effectively taught with the help of talkies. Lessons on road sense, rules of hygiene, and civic sense can be taught to students and the public in a very effective manner with the help of cinematic pictures. Many successful experiments have been conducted in various countries on the utility of films as a means of education. Feature films have been produced for school and college students, and students are benefiting from them.

Cinematic films have the power to influence people’s thinking. They have changed society and social trends. They have introduced new fashions into society. They may be described as pacesetters.

They can have a direct impact on our social lives. Films can go a long way towards arousing national consciousness and also utilising the energies of the youth in social reconstruction and nation-building. Through the skillful adaptation of good moral, social, and educational themes and the introduction of popular sentiments, films can, to a great extent, formulate and guide public opinion. Because of their audio-visual appeal, cinematic films are the most powerful means of publicity and advertisement. Small publicity pictures or skits, when shown on the screen, easily catch the imagination of spectators. Cinema has so far remained unchanged as the most popular audio-visual mass medium in our country. With the arrival of television and its impressive pace of advancement, the audio-visual medium has reached millions of households in India.

In our country, cinematography has been developed as an art, and the film industry is an organised industry. It is a foreign exchange-earning industry. Many Indian films have won international awards.

Cinema has become a powerful vehicle for culture, education, leisure, and propaganda. In a 1963 report for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation looking at Indian cinema and culture, the author (Baldoon Dhingra) quoted a speech by Prime Minister Nehru who stated, “The influence of films in India is greater than newspapers and books combined.” Even at this early stage in cinema, the Indian film market catered to over 25 million people a week, considered to be just a ‘fringe’ of the population.

-Melwyn William

Welcome to Inter-School Short Film Competition;

Brought to you by

Chavara Cultural Centre, Delhi

In association with

Indian Diaspora Global

Connecting Dots … Connecting Roots…

Cinema 4 Schools

A curriculum to teach film making to school children.

An independent inter-school short film completion for school children to promote peace and harmony with a title theme as “Unity In Diversity” that invites school children from around the world to share their stories.

All shorts with a running time of up to three minutes are welcome.

Submit your film Now!

Submit Here

Awards & Prizes

The winners can be interviewed on the spot. This interview can be published on our website(s) and social media + winner Trophy (if a representative is present) + certificate and laurel.

𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀:

– Best Short Film
– Audience Award
– Best Actress
– Best Actor
– Best Screenplay/script
– Best Editing
– Best Cinematography
– Best Director

Goals

To imbibe the core Indian values into the students through the medium of films.
Introduce cinema and the craft of cinema to children.
Become more active and thoughtful viewers of visual media.
Understand how to write with clarity, confidence, and joy.
Improve their creative expression and storytelling skills.
Lead more examined lives.
Exercise their critical-viewing skills and imagination.
Experience a variety of Virtues and Values from around, through the world of cinema.
Examine how filmmakers tell stories.
Engage their senses to focus on their inner and outer worlds.
Enliven their creative expression and storytelling skills using the tools of a filmmaker.

The Flow Of The Competition

November 2023: Call for entries from school students worldwide.
December 2023: Submission Deadline (The school will select the best three out of all the films made by their respective students and send them to us as entries.)
January 2024: Pre-Final list to be prepared by the Jury
Jury: The films will be selected by academicians who teach cinema in the department of mass communication at various universities in India and overseas, along with film industry professionals and veterans.
February 2024: Announcement of the final list of selected films
February 2024: Screening of the final list of selected films.

After the premier screening is over, the final list of films, along with those that did not make the final list, will be uploaded onto the YouTube channel.

Rules & Terms

Movie files need to be in h.264/mp4 format for screening.
Movies should meet the minimum requirements of either 1280×720 pixels or 1920×1080 pixels (full HD).
Running time for short movies: up to three minutes.
Subtitling: all movies must have English subtitles.
The applicants will be asked to forward their movie via We Transfer or a similar service to the email address: filmsubmissions.ccc@gmail.com
There are no submission fees.
The jury’s decision is final. The organizers reserves the right to modify the rules at any time.
We will never publish films without permission. However, we may use a brief clip for promotional purposes.
Entries for the inter-school Short Film competition are open for everyone. Participants under the legal age must submit a consent letter from their parent or guardian.
The Short Film should be based on the theme ‘Unity In Diversity’. We are currently not accepting Animated and/or Documentary Films.
The short film can be either in English or Hindi language. However, all films must include sub-titles in English.
The total runtime of the Short Film, including opening & closing credits, should strictly be a maximum of 3 minutes.
All content used in the short film must be either owned or licensed. If any copyrighted material is used in the film, the participant must have the permission and submit a copy to the Organizers.
The Last Date for Submissions is 31^st December 2023.
Short films must be uploaded to our We Transfer account or through other online services like Google Drive or Dropbox and must be made available for download to the festival organizers. YouTube & Vimeo links are not accepted.
Only Short Films produced & completed after 1st November 2023 are eligible for the festival.
The films has to be submitted through the school only and the maximum number of entries is a maximum of 3 films per school.
The films submitted is on a condition that you grant us the rights to hold a private and online screening of your film.
The films submitted is on a condition that you grant us the right to upload the film on to our YouTube channel and also grant us the rights to use the contents of the film in part or in full for the promotional purposes in all possible mediums.
The Chavara Cultural Centre reserves the rights to copy or use the material submitted by the participants in any form, online or offline, for the festival’s promotional and archival purposes. Note that your short film will be shared with the associated partners or uploaded online.
The short films that are selected for final screening will not be allowed to withdraw under any circumstances.
Judges’ decision will be final and binding.
The competition organizers and the Chavara Cultural Centre reserve the right to change / modify / alter any rule or its part or event of this competition anytime.