From stick figures to poster art

In the competition’s preliminary round, the children were asked to draw posters on the film of their choice. The 50 best posters were selected from this. The fifty children from 28 schools were then brought to CFSI for the finals which were held today. A panel of four judges selected the five prize winning posters from these.

Chairman of the Children’s Film Society of India, Sai Paranjpye said that the endeavour is part of CFSI’s effort to involve children from various stratas in its activities. She added that the response from the BMC was most encouraging and in view on this CFSI might have more such programmes in future.

Municipal Commissioner V Ranganathan, chief guest at the Prize distribution ceremony said that BMC and CFSI has been associated with each other since years through various programmes. In his opinion, "It’s important to have these kind of activities in schools not just to promote talents but also for the all around development of a child’s personality. The objective of attending school must not be just acquiring jobs but the development of the whole self." According to him "There is a need for more short films with social messages on various problems in society."

Vivek Sonavane, vice-principal of BMC art Education said that "There is a lot of talented students in municipal schools who get little chance outside the schools to exhibit their talents. For this competition the students were selected by the teachers on the basis of merit alone. As BMC has various drawing and painting competition in municipal schools throughout the year, the art teachers could easily select the meritorious students."

The prize winners apart from Satpal who won a bycycle for his poster on The Goal, were Reshma Ranganath Warang who won the second prize of Walkmann for her poster of Pakda Gayaa, Naresh Dattaram More for Pakda Gayaa, Rajani Anand Chavan for Pehle Aap and Manjula Manohar Yadav for Pakda Gayaa.

CFSI also has plans to put up the rest of the posters on exhibition. The judges for the competition were animator Ram Mohan, artist Jehangir Sabavalla, Illustrator Shreyas Nawre and artist and printer Anant Sapre.

For the children who came for the competition, CFSI screened its latest film Katt Katt Kad Kaddu. Now they plan to hold an elocution competition on "My favourite children’s film’ for the children of the police force on December 29. The film Pehle Aap will be screened on that day.