SHOBDO KOLPO BHROM

SHOBDO KOLPO BHROM
SOUND IMAGE ILLUSION
A movie festival for youngsters to view and discuss films from
all over the world
It is easy to guess that one of your favourite pastimes is watching movies on a computer screen or in a movie hall. When the screen lights up, the magic of cinema begins to work. Lives of strangers begin to unfold in front of you. You quietly watch these strangers laughing, crying, fighting, dancing, living, dying. You begin to identify with them, you begin to live their lives by proxy. The movie begins to grow on you. For two hours you are sucked into somebody else’s world. Even when the harsh lights come on, the movie stays with you. In fact, it lives only inside you. You can play it back in your mind again and again.
But don’t you think the movies that you get to watch are rather similar in the stories they tell, in the people and places they present? In Shobdo Kolpo Bhrom we shall endeavour to bring to you movies from all over the world – real life stories and stories of fictitious characters, easy to watch popular films as well as more intriguing experimental ones. You will see how a Cuban boy, an avid football fan, not being allowed to enter a football stadium or an Iranian boy running to the end of the town to put his goldfish back in the water. You will realize that even if they speak a language you don’t understand or follow customs unfamiliar to you, they have so much in common with you. You will also realize that so many little things in life can bring so much joy.
Every movie you watch will be introduced by a person who understands films well. After the screening she/ he will facilitate a discussion among you where you will be free to point out what you liked or disliked in the film and why. This exercise will give you an insight into the mechanism behind the magic of movies. You will gain some understanding of how movies cast their spell on us. The discussions will also bring to the forefront the issues addressed in the movie and how these issues affect your everyday life.
Besides screenings and discussions, look out for other activities too. (See below for details).
Movies are also an excellent tool for learning. Teachers are encouraged to attend the screenings and discussions so that later they enliven their classroom teaching with snippets of these and other movies.
All children and adults are welcome to the festival. Click on the picture below for the screening schedule and to know more about the individual films, scroll down and click on the respective film names. Shobdo Kolpo Bhrom is a part of Bal Vividha.

Schedule
ANDERS ARTIG

FRIENDS

CHILDREN OF NOMADS

THE SNAKEBOY AND THE SANDCASTLE

SOAPBOX RACE

WAITING

LITTLE PEACE OF MINE

THORA PYAAR THORA PEACE

COLOUR OF PARADISE

PUPPETRY

PLEASE VOTE FOR ME

A SUNNY DAY

SIX DRUMMERS AND AN APARTMENT

SHAUN THE SHEEP: STILL LIFE

MORE LIPSTICK

PRETTY BIG DIG

ONE LOKMAN

SHIMA 8 YEARS OLD

MY FAMILY

KALVETTU

THE OTHER WAY

THE MAGIC TREE: DEVOURER OF BOOKS

STARK! KEVIN – HEAR ME OUT

BEYOND BELIEF

DESPERADOS

BAAJA

KINDERGARTEN






Express your love for cinema. Participate in the following competitions
WRITE A COMMENT
Write a comment of the film you have watched at the Shobdo Kolpo Bhrom festival in not more than 500 words. You may write in English, Bengali or Hindi. In your comment, do not write the story of the film, but explain in your own words why you have liked the film and what you think are the most memorable scenes or images in the film.
DESIGN A POSTER
If you are a good artist or cartoonist or designer, design a poster of the film based on the scene you liked best in the film.
Write your name, age, class and address and submit to your class teacher by the 30th of September or mail your write up to subha.dasmollick@gmail.com
In each category, there will be three prizes each for students of classes VI to VIII and classes IX to XII.. There will be several consolation prizes
The best reviews and posters will be uploaded in the Shobdo Kolpo Bhrom blog.

Bal vividha

Click the link below to see the promo for bal vividha...

The boy, the pan and the drums

Synopsis: A little boy in Brazil wants to play cymbals in the local band. He does not have cymbals. He takes one pan from his home and one more from the neighbours who had left theutensils out for drying. He reaches the band just in time and begins to crash the cymbals in rhythm.

Little Terrorist (India) 15 mins Dir: Ashwin Kumar

Jamaal is a little Pakistani boy living at the Indo Pak border. One day, while playing cricket, his ball accidentally comes on the Indian side. To recover the ball, he crosses the fence, braves the landmines and comes to India. The Border Security Forces fleetingly catch a glimpse of him, but he manages to hide behind the rocks. A Hindu schoolteacher gives him shelter and after nightfall, makes sure that he safely crosses the border and unites with his mother.

JAKUB

Jakub. This film from Poland was not scheduled. But Mr. Raju Raman showed it as a Bonus on the 26th of August at the 10am slot.
Synopsis: A boy is sent to the market by his mother to buy some milk. The boy encounters a cow on the way. He befriends the cow and starts milking it - and begins to make some money even though he does not want to make money. Owner of the neighbourhood departmental store notices this and tries to hijack the cow. Jacub rescues the cow and brings it home

Wagah (India) 15 mins Dir: Supriyo Sen

The 3000 Km long Indo Pak border has one major checkpoint - Wagah. Positioned along the road connecting Lahore (Pakistan) and Amritsar (India), this checkpoint is a big tourist attraction for both Indians and Pakistanis. Everyday, at 4pm, a crowd gathers to watch the spectacle of the lowering of flags at sundown. The border security forces put up a grand show to the loud cheering from the crowd.

wagah, the documentary film by Supriyo Sen, captures this spectacle from the perspective of three children living near the border.

Comet Media Foundation

Comet Media Foundation
Topiwala Municipal School, Lamington Road
Mumbai 400007, India
Tel: 91-22-2382 6674 or 2386 9052
e-mail: cometmediafdn@gmail.com
website: http://www.cometmedia.org/
Ten years and 24 rounds of bal vividha
Comet Media Foundation is a non-profit organisation based at Mumbai, active since 1985. We are involved in producing educational communication materials in print, film and video media and in holding public events that bring these elements together. The subject of our work is a range of issues related to science, technology and society. These concerns have led us to experiment with varied forms of media, from the conventional, like film, video and print publications, to evolving our own genre of educational development resource festivals called vividha.
One such festival is bal vividha, dedicated to introducing innovative approaches to education to children, teachers and parents in an interactive manner. The objective being to communicate alternative educational approaches based on experiential and constructivist pedagogies, bal vividha is a collective event of all the participants. It highlights their work and their perspectives and seeing a concentration of many interesting approaches at one place gives ideas and inspiration to the festival visitors. Most of these are approaches which one can easily adapt. They are for the most part, low-cost ingenious ideas, which bring joy to children and make them think for themselves.
This is edition 24 of bal vividha, and we are happy to say that this winter we are completing a decade of bal vividhas, having started on Children's Day of 1998. It has been a privilege for us to do the necessary networking and fund raising to put bal vividha together. In the course of it, we meet the most interesting people and come to know of their efforts in education. We are thrilled to return for our third bal vividha in Kolkata this year, following earlier editions in 2006 and 2007.
We are grateful to our partners, the Birla Industrial and Technological Museum of the Government of India for co-hosting this event for three years. Our Kolkata coordinator Subha Das Mollick and the team, many of whom are participating in it for the second and third time, must be commended for their steadfastness. They have created this wonderful event with barely any infrastructure, their temporary office being situated inside their mobile phones and e-mail accounts. We also express our thanks to the organising committee, who have been generous in supporting the team's efforts with suggestions and material contributions, giving us a tremendous sense of security.
Despite in the potential for chaos with so many collaborators, the Kolkata bal vividha event has built itself through the combined experience of all these dedicated people and has acquired its own regional flavour and following of people who contribute, participate and visit repeatedly every year.
Since 2005, Comet as an organisation has been drawn to increasingly the ubiquitous Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), based on our activities over the past many years. ICTs represent the possibility that everyone with access to the tools can become a participating learner and get access to vast reserves of knowledge. This is a particularly exciting prospect in a society where adequate libraries and laboratories do not exist in most communities and institutions.
Apart from the educational communication aspect, computers and the Internet provide scope for collaborative learning. Learners can become communicators, putting across their thoughts and experiences to the world. This opens up a new channel for teachers, NGO workers, artists, lawyers and others involved in public activities -- to produce and disseminate their own content instead of waiting for “professional” communicators such as journalists or film makers to do it for them or media such as newspapers or TV channels to reach their content to the public.
Yet there is a troubling paradox: while national and international policy supports the proliferation of ICTs (for governance, health, education, area resource mapping and other such beneficial applications), the widespread understanding of technology by decision makers and implementers is equipment-centred. It is based on an idea of education as an object sanctioned by authority and to be parroted by the recipients. Comet's objective is quite the opposite: creativity, critical thinking, democratic discourse and the opening of entrepreneurial avenues. It is not merely about installing machines and training people to operate them, but about being able to pull them apart and do new things with them. As we explored further, we realised that the potential for creativity in the ICT area cannot be realised if the playing field is restricted by copyrights and so we were drawn to the free software movement, from which we have drawn resources for our ICT or New Media work.
In the past year we have continued to conduct skill-building workshops with practitioners from various areas of social activism such as human rights, women's rights, environmental activism, as well as HIV-positive self-help groups, school teachers and disabled people, to build curricular materials and a base of experience and contacts with would-be participant organisations for an institute called COSMOS which we propose to start.
We are also very happy that one of our initiatives of exposing school children and teachers to ICTs in West Bengal has also been realised and a series of popular lectures is being organised by BITM (with help from Comet) as part of the science camps to be held in their Kolkata campus for the districts of Bardhaman, Purulia, Digha and Siliguri. This venture is being supported by the Dept. of Science and Technology of the West Bengal Government. The resource people will be highlighting the use of ICTs in the teaching learning process, emphasising the possibilities of learning in one's own mother tongue, and introducing free software to the educational community. The programme has already started in Kolkata in November 2008 and can be considered one of the fruits of the bal vividha initiative.
We are keen to hear from interested people who would like to collaborate or share their thoughts with us in both the movement to take ICTs based on free software into the hands of teachers and students and in holding festivals celebrating joyful learning and liberation from the burdens of education by rote. Please visit us at http://www.cometmedia.org/ and drop us a line at cometmediafdn@gmail.com.
Chandita Mukherjee, Director, Comet Media Foundation

Birla Industrial & Technological Museum

Birla Industrial & Technological Museum -
Communicating Science for half a Century
Dr. Jayanta Sthanapati, Director
History of the Building
The premises of BITM, now 19A, Gurusaday Road was known as 18, Ballygunge Store Road before 1919. Record shows that one Mr. Mirza Abdul Karim sold it to the Tagores in 1898 and G. D. Birla had bought the property from Surendranath Tagore in 1919. After the Birlas took over the property, the house used by the Tagores was pulled down and the building that we see today was constructed. Luminaries like Mahatma Gandhi, Motilal Nehru, Lala Lajpat Rai, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya frequented this house.
After independence, National Education Policy of India has always encouraged popularization of science for economic growth and social upliftment. About 50 years ago, Dr. B. C. Roy, the then Chief Minster of West Bengal, foresaw a big role of Museum of Science, Technology and Industry in a developing country. This idea also matched with that of Industrialist G.D. Birla and in 1956 a part of the magnanimous Birla Park in Kolkata was handed over by him to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, for setting up Birla Industrial & Technological Museum. It was the first organized science museum in India and was opened to the public on 2nd May 1959.
Its aim and Objectives
Its primary aims and objectives are (i) to portray sequential development of science and technology to its visitors, (ii) to create scientific awareness among the common people, and (iii) to help students develop a scientific outlook and democratic spirit, which were essential for the working of the constitution of India.
History of BITM
Backtracking down the memory lane, we find that BITM was opened with galleries on Electricity, Petroleum, Nuclear Physics and Metallurgy of Iron, Steel & Copper. Then one by one, Motive Power (1962), Communication (1963), Mining (1964), Popular Science (1965), Electronics & TV (1966) galleries were added. After a gap of about seven years, a new gallery on Transport was opened in 1973. From the very inception, Popular Lectures and Film Shows got underway. Science Demonstration Lectures for students became a feature of BITM from 1965. The same year also saw the pioneering effort of BITM - the Mobile Science Exhibition (MSE). The first exhibition on wheels through MSE was 'Our Familiar Electricity'. The very next year Students Science Seminar was organized at BITM. The concept of Model Making Competition, popularly known as Science Fair can be traced back to 1967. Gaining strong foothold in the city, BITM thought of going to the rural Bengal to spread the message of science. In 1968, the first satellite unit of BITM, a small science centre, at Purulia was opened. BITM also played a significant role in setting up Visvesvaraya Industrial & Technological Museum in Bangalore in 1965. Both BITM and VITM were then functioning under the control of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.
As time went by, BITM added not only new galleries, but also new educational activities every year. It showed to the world how a science museum could be set up by indigenous effort and run successfully. In 1978, the National Council of Science Museums (NCSM), the parent body of all Science Museums/Centers in India, including BITM, was created. The NCSM started functioning from the premises of BITM.
Satellite Units of BITM
During the third and fourth decade of its existence, i.e., between 1978 and 1997, BITM gave tremendous support to NCSM for setting up seven science centres, which are now functioning as satellite units of BITM. They are Shrikrishna Science Centre Patna (1978), District Science Centre Purulia (1982), Regional Science Centre Bhubaneswar (1989), Science Centre Burdwan (1994), Dhenkanal Science Centre and Kapilas Science Park (1995), North Bengal Science Centre (1997) and Digha Science Centre (1997). Mock-up Coal Mine in BITM was inaugurated in 1983.
Towards the 50th Anniversary Year of BITM
Out of 12 permanent galleries in 2004, only 3 galleries, namely, Life Science, Biotechnology and Motive Power (II) were set up in recent years, but remaining 9 galleries were 16 to 42 years old. The presentations of those galleries were old fashioned and information on the subjects was not updated for the past few decades. We set a target to renovate all the galleries of BITM, one or more every year, so that by 2009 during the Golden Jubilee celebration of the museum, we would be able to present a new BITM to the society. We opened a gallery on 'Metals' in May 2005 and, thereafter, a 3D Vision Theatre and Fascinating Physics 2006. Motive Power (I) in 2006, Television in 2007. Transport and Coal Mine in 2008 was completely overhauled and were thrown open with new features. Galleries on Popular Science, Communication & IT and Mathematics are in the pipeline.
Innovative programmes
For attracting more visitors to BITM, special initiative to offer value added (existing) educational programmes and also new activites for the students and general visitors were thought of and implemented. Example may be cited of :-
Exhibition on 'Aviation and Space'
An exhibition on 'Aviation and Space' was conceptualized and organized from 2004 onwards in collaboration with Aeronautical Society of India, Kolkata Branch with an aim to create awareness among the common mass about the different aspect of this vibrant technology and its application. Scaled down models of Jet Engine, Satellites, models of some latest Aircrafts, Remote Controlled Helicopter, Pilot Ejection Seats, Black Box, Aircraft Control Panel, Runway, Aircraft Operations, missiles and host of other equipments related to aviation are exhibited. Thousands visit the exhibition every year.
Programmes for special target groups
There are numerous schools in Kolkata that deals with physically and visually challenged students. Initiative was taken for the first time to bring them under the fold of museum activities and they readily responded with enthusiasm and eagerness. Various NGOs extended their support to organize their visit and participation in various programmes. Each year numerous events are organized for thousands of underprivileged and challenged students, who participate with a lot of enthusiasm.
Bal vivida
Bal vividha, an education fair for children and adults got rolling at BITM in collaboration with Comet Media Foundation from 2006 with a string of innovative events. This programme is also a tremendous success if one goes by the amount of footfall it receives.
Organising Innovation Hub in INFOCOM
INFOCOM is an international business exhibition and conference organized by Business World, India's leading business magazine, for the last six years. The Innovation Hub at INFOCOM is a unique platform for bright, young students with innovation on their minds and passion to execute it. In collaboration with the Telegraph, The Innovation Hub at INFOCOM offers space for new, innovative projects which are exhibited before a gathering of the luminaries from the corporate world. The Science and Engineering students from all over India, who have talent to make a mark, are short listed and are given a chance to bring recognition to themselves as well as to their institute.
With all the above efforts and many more, we are inching towards our cherished goal, i.e., making BITM a Science Museum for everyone but with a difference by 2009.

Future pathways of HAREKARAKAMBA

11 years and 25 rounds of bal vividha

Comet Media Foundation is a non-profit organisation based at Mumbai, active since 1985. The subject of our work is a range of issues related to science, technology and society. We are involved in producing educational communication materials in print and video, training people to make their own media and in holding public events on around social concerns and themes related to science and technology. These interests have led us to experiment with varied forms of media, to evolving our own genre of educational development resource festivals called vividha.

One such festival is bal vividha,dedicated to introducing innovative approaches to education to children, teachers and parents in an interactive manner. The objective being to communicate alternative educational approaches based on experiential and constructivist pedagogies, the festival is a collective event of all the participants. It highlights their work and their perspectives and seeing a concentration of many interesting approaches at one place gives ideas and inspiration to the visitors. Most of these are approaches which one can easily adapt. They are for the most part, low-cost ingenious ideas, which bring joy to children and make them think for themselves.

This is edition 25 of bal vividha, the first edition being Children's Day of 1998. We are happy to say that this is now our eleventh year of holding such festivals. It has been a great experience for all the people who have worked on this project. When doing all the necessary networking and fund raising to put bal vividha together, we meet the most interesting people and come to know closely of their unique efforts in education.

In 2009, we are thrilled to return to Kolkata for the fourth time with bal vividha known as Harekarokamba in Bangla, following earlier editions in 2006, 2007 and 2008. We are grateful to our partners, the Birla Industrial and Technological Museum of the Government of India for consistently co-hosting this event through the years.

This year our Kolkata partner is the Development Research Communication and Services Centre. The entire process has been skilfully guided by the Secretary of the Centre, Anshuman Das and a team of colleagues held together by continuous and intense e-mail discussions and occasional face-to-face meetings. This year the festival is part an outcome of a year-round series of events.

At the risk of leaving out some people, I'd like to make special mention of Subha Das Mollick who organised the portable children's film festival Shobdo Kolpo Bhrom, a popular success, still available on request to any school or children's group; Malini Mukherjee who has organised the opening Colloquium of the festival, on the theme Education for Sustainable Development; Gitanjali Ghosh, who has done all the workshops once again, balancing the distribution of topics, resource persons and profiles of participants in a salubrious way; Sayanti Mukherji who has worked very hard to raise funds through the donation of art by artists and their subsequent sale; and Anando Mukherjee who will be holding together the Rangmanch stage with his organising of the groups doing the programmes and his engaging compering for the fourth time around. Raising funds is always tough, but this year has been especially so, due to the recession, when many of our regular donors have not been able to contribute. The fact that this team has steered the festival into being is itself a great achievement under the circumstances.

Many of the team are participating in it for the second, third and fourth time and their steadfastness shows that this is what they really enjoy. They have created this wonderful event with barely any infrastructure, using their mobile phones and e-mail accounts as their offices. We also express our thanks to the organising committee, who have been generous in supporting the team's efforts with suggestions and material contributions, giving us a tremendous sense of security. Despite in the potential for chaos with so many collaborators, the Kolkata bal vividha event has built itself through the combined experience of all these dedicated people and has acquired its own regional flavour and following of people who contribute, participate and visit repeatedly every year.

Since 2005, Comet as an organisation has been drawn to increasingly the ubiquitous Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), based on our activities the past many years. ICTs represent the possibility that everyone with access to the tools can become a participating learner and get access to vast reserves of knowledge. This is a particularly exciting prospect in a society where adequate libraries and laboratories do not exist in most communities and institutions.

Apart from the educational communication aspect, computers and the Internet provide scope for collaborative learning. Learners can become communicators, putting across their thoughts and experiences to the world. This opens up a new channel for teachers, NGO workers, artists, lawyers and others involved in public activities ― to produce and disseminate their own content instead of waiting for “professional” communicators such as journalists or film makers to do it for them or media such as newspapers or TV channels to reach their content to the public.

Yet there is a troubling paradox: while national and international policy supports the proliferation of ICTs (for governance, health, education, area resource mapping and other such beneficial applications), the widespread understanding of technology by decision makers and implementers is equipment-centred. It is based on an idea of education as an object sanctioned by authority and to be parroted by the recipients.

Our objective is quite the opposite: creativity, critical thinking, democratic discourse and the opening of entrepreneurial avenues. It is not merely about installing machines and training people to operate them, but about being able to pull them apart and do new things with them. we explore, we realise that the potential for creativity in the ICT area cannot be realised if the playing field is restricted by copyrights and so we were drawn to the free software movement, from which we have drawn resources for our ICT or New Media work.

We conduct skill-building workshops with practitioners from various areas of social activism such as human rights, women's rights, environmental activism, as well as HIV-positive self-help groups, school teachers and disabled people, to build curricular materials and a base of experience and contacts with would-be participant organisations for an institute called COSMOS which we propose to start.

Comet is keen to hear from interested people who would like to collaborate or share their thoughts with us in both the movement to take ICTs based on free software into the hands of teachers and students and in holding festivals celebrating joyful learning and liberation from the burdens of education by rote. Please visit us at www.cometmedia.org and drop us a line at cometmediafdn@gmail.com.


Chandita Mukherjee, Director, Comet Media Foundation

A SUNNY DAY

A SUNNY DAY (4 mins) Germany Director: Gil Alkabetz
Courtesy Prix Jeunesse Suitcase
An animated story about a very unusual day in the life of the Sun: the sun rises every morning, but today it discovers that it is not as welcome as it hoped to be.

A sunny day is being screened on the 27th of August 2009 between 1pm and 3 pm in the BITM auditorium

PUPPETRY

PUPPETRY (6 mins) Netherlands Director: Camiel Schouwenaar
Courtesy: Prix Jeunesse Suitcase
Manipulated by two pairs of hands, a little man embarks on a big adventure – with books. The hands prod him on and make sure that he suceeds.

CHILDREN OF NOMADS

CHILDREN OF NOMADS (15 mins) India Director:


A young girl accompanies her parents to the hills to spend her vacations with a nomadic tribe. While her parents take a creativity workshop with the children of the tribes, the little girl picks up a microphone and takes interviews of the children. Strange dreams and aspirations are revealed in the conversation between the interviewer and the interviewee.

FRIENDS

FRIENDS (15 mins) Mongolia Director:


A young boy gets a mentally challenged grown up boy as his next door neighbour. They strike a deep chord of friendship. One day a group of hoodlums in the neighbourhood attack the duo. The two friends try their best to defend each other from the violent onslaught. But do they succeed?

ANDERS ARTIG

ANDERS ARTIG (7 mins) Germany Director: Christina Schindler
A chameleon was born with a colour different from its brothers and sisters. It also behaves differently from its brothers and sisters. They exclude it from their activities. The odd chameleon, however, saves another chameleon's life from the claws of an eagle and that changes the situation. What has always been different is now accepted.

One Lokman

ONE LOKMAN (10 mins);Bangladesh

Production: Out of Focus (DRIK)
Courtesy: Drik India
A group of children in Bangladesh have brought to us the stories of Lokman, a singer and Shima a flower seller. They are two marginalized children in Bangladesh. Their families depend on them for the daily bread; yet they nurture aspirations to grow big.

Kindergarten

KINDERGARTEN (69 mins) China Director: Yizing Zhang
Courtesy: INPUT
The film captures everyday lives of children at a boarding kindergarten in Wuhan, China. It captures the childrens moments of laughter and happiness, their struggles against setbacks that they do not always understand. The film is a metaphor for the adult world.

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SHOBDO KOLPO BHROM
SOUND IMAGE ILLUSION
A movie festival for youngsters to view and discuss films from
all over the world
It is easy to guess that one of your favourite pastimes is watching movies on a computer screen or in a movie hall. When the screen lights up, the magic of cinema begins to work. Lives of strangers begin to unfold in front of you. You quietly watch these strangers laughing, crying, fighting, dancing, living, dying. You begin to identify with them, you begin to live their lives by proxy. The movie begins to grow on you. For two hours you are sucked into somebody else’s world. Even when the harsh lights come on, the movie stays with you. In fact, it lives only inside you. You can play it back in your mind again and again.
But don’t you think the movies that you get to watch are rather similar in the stories they tell, in the people and places they present? In Shobdo Kolpo Bhrom we shall endeavour to bring to you movies from all over the world – real life stories and stories of fictitious characters, easy to watch popular films as well as more intriguing experimental ones. You will see how a Cuban boy, an avid football fan, not being allowed to enter a football stadium or an Iranian boy running to the end of the town to put his goldfish back in the water. You will realize that even if they speak a language you don’t understand or follow customs unfamiliar to you, they have so much in common with you. You will also realize that so many little things in life can bring so much joy.
Every movie you watch will be introduced by a person who understands films well. After the screening she/ he will facilitate a discussion among you where you will be free to point out what you liked or disliked in the film and why. This exercise will give you an insight into the mechanism behind the magic of movies. You will gain some understanding of how movies cast their spell on us. The discussions will also bring to the forefront the issues addressed in the movie and how these issues affect your everyday life.
Besides screenings and discussions, look out for other activities too. (See below for details).
Movies are also an excellent tool for learning. Teachers are encouraged to attend the screenings and discussions so that later they enliven their classroom teaching with snippets of these and other movies.
All children and adults are welcome to the festival. Click on the picture below for the screening schedule and to know more about the individual films, scroll down and click on the respective film names.

Schedule
ANDERS ARTIG

FRIENDS

CHILDREN OF NOMADS

THE SNAKEBOY AND THE SANDCASTLE

SOAPBOX RACE

WAITING

LITTLE PEACE OF MINE

THORA PYAAR THORA PEACE

COLOUR OF PARADISE

PUPPETRY

PLEASE VOTE FOR ME

A SUNNY DAY

SIX DRUMMERS AND AN APARTMENT

SHAUN THE SHEEP: STILL LIFE

MORE LIPSTICK

PRETTY BIG DIG

ONE LOKMAN

SHIMA 8 YEARS OLD

MY FAMILY

KALVETTU

THE OTHER WAY

THE MAGIC TREE: DEVOURER OF BOOKS

STARK! KEVIN – HEAR ME OUT

BEYOND BELIEF

DESPERADOS

BAAJA

KINDERGARTEN






Express your love for cinema. Participate in the following competitions
WRITE A COMMENT
Write a comment of the film you have watched at the Shobdo Kolpo Bhrom festival in not more than 500 words. You may write in English, Bengali or Hindi. In your comment, do not write the story of the film, but explain in your own words why you have liked the film and what you think are the most memorable scenes or images in the film.
DESIGN A POSTER
If you are a good artist or cartoonist or designer, design a poster of the film based on the scene you liked best in the film.
Write your name, age, class and address and submit to your class teacher by the 30th of September or mail your write up to subha.dasmollick@gmail.com
In each category, there will be three prizes each for students of classes VI to VIII and classes IX to XII.. There will be several consolation prizes
The best reviews and posters will be uploaded in the Shobdo Kolpo Bhrom blog.

Colour Of Paradise

Mohammad, a boy at Tehran's institute for the blind, waits for his dad to pick him up for summer vacation. While waiting, he realizes a baby bird has fallen from its nest: he chases away a cat, finds the bird, climbs a tree, and puts it back. His father finally comes and takes him to their village where his sisters and granny await. The lad is a loving student of nature and longs for village life with his family, but his father is ashamed of him, wanting to farm the boy out to clear the way for marriage to a woman who knows nothing of this son. Over granny's objections, dad apprentices Mohammad far from home to a blind carpenter. Can anything bring father and son together?

Scroll down to watch the trailer.


Colour of Paradise or Rang-e Khoda, a film made by Majid Majidi in 1999 is being shown as part of Shobdo Kolpo Bhrom on the 28th August, 2009 at Nandan 3, from 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm. Invitation is open to all.

Beyond Belief

Director: Abhijit Dasgupta
Courtesy Kolkata Sukriti Foundation
Sixteen differently abled young men are taken on an adventure tour to the forests of North Bengal on the foothills of the Himalayas. It has to be seen to be believed how they negotiate the difficult terrain and reach their destination. The film emphatically drives home the point that differently abled individuals deserve to be included into the mainstream of society.

Desperados

Great Britain
Troubled Kyle sits in a wheelchair, but is a passionate basket ball player. Against his mother’s will, he enters the wheelchair basket ball team Desperados.

Stark! Kevin Hear Me Out

Director: Georg Bussek
Courtesy Prix Jeunesse Suitcase
Kevin struggles every day to speak. He stutters and stammers painfully and rarely makes it to the end of a sentence. He finds it hard to bear. Now he is going to undertake a gruelling training course to try to solve the problem. Will he succeed?

The Magic Tree: Devourer Of Books

Director: Andrzej Maleska Courtesy: Prix Jeunesse Suitcase
A kitchen cupboard has been brought into a school library by mistake. It possesses an amazing attribute – each book put inside changes into a cake.
The secret was discovered by Jakub – the twelve years old boy, who hates reading books. He begins to 'eat books' and as a result he becomes the best pupil as well as a contestant at a quiz show for young prodigies.

The Other Way

Denmark Director: Tina Svendsen
A documentary about Nicki whose life hasn’t been too easy. His father was a biker and was beaten to death when Nicki was 6. Nicki is still angry with him for chosing this way of life, and each day, Nicki struggles to break the criminal career he started at a young age. One day, he is offered an audition for a movie and now he is anxiously waiting to hear if he gets the part. That could be a turning point in his life.

Kalvettu

Director: Pavel
Courtesy: Nalandaway
Kalvettu is a little Tamil boy whose father has deserted his family. Kalvettu harbours a lot of resentment for his father which erupts out in his conversation with a piece of stone.

My family

Director: Anupa Shrestha
Courtesy: Prix Jeunesse Suitcase
A six year old girl with her cousin sister introduces her family of 29 and their way of life.

Shima 8 years old

SHIMA 8 YEARS OLD (10 mins) Bangladesh Production: Out of Focus (DRIK)
Courtesy: Drik India
A group of children in Bangladesh have brought to us the stories of Lokman, a singer and Shima a flower seller. They are two marginalized children in Bangladesh. Their families depend on them for the daily bread; yet they nurture aspirations to grow big.

Shaun The Sheep : Still Life

Directors: Richard Goleszowski and Chris Sadler
Courtesy: Prix Jeunesse Suitcase
Funny animation film on a sheep named Shaun and his countless mischiefs. The farmer takes up oil painting and is determined to paint a masterpiece. But when his back is turned, Shaun and co. decide to have a go.

Pretty Big Dig

Courtesy INPUT
Who says earthmovers are soul less monsters? They too can put up a graceful show if the right music is played for them.

More Lipstick

MORE LIPSTICK (15 mins) Finland
Courtesy INPUT
This television programme presents snippets from lives of teenaged girls, who are victims of peer pressure, who are caught in sibling rivalry, who think their parents do not understand and appreciate them.

Six Drummers and An Apartment

Courtesy INPUT
Six young men and women break into an empty apartment and create bizarre music with household gadgets. The owners of the apartment find their apartment turned upside down on their return.

Please Vote For Me

PLEASE VOTE FOR ME (47 mins) China Director: Weijun Chen
Courtesy INPUT
At the Evergreen Primary School in Central China, two boys and a girl are nominated by the class teacher to contest for the post of the class monitor. They campaign bitterly for one month. Their parents are also drawn into the contest and enthusiastically tutor their children the strategies of campaigning. Eventually, voting takes place on the D Day amidst great excitement. The winner takes all.

Baaja

Director: AK Bir
Shibu is a spirited and adventurous boy of 11, who lives with his uncle in the big city Mumbai. Having won a bet with his friends, he acquires a mouth organ from another boy in his neighbourhood and is reluctant to give it back. His aunt gets tired of his antics and so his uncle, who is a cobbler, takes him along to work, where he gets a chance to play on his newly acquired mouth organ. One day, when he goes to a high rise apartment to deliver a pair of shoes, he gets into an adventure and manages to save the life of a child. The child’s grandmother is deeply grateful to Shibu. Shibu, who has been chided by everybody all these years, suddenly gets back his self esteem. There comes upon a transformation in him and he returns the mouth organ to its original owner.

Thora Pyaar Thora Peace

Courtesy: Seagull PeaceWorks
Youngsters express their concerns about peace and toletance through short films

Little Peace Of Mine

LITTLE PEACE OF MINE (56 mins) Israel Director: Eyal Avneri
Courtesy: Prix Jeunesse Suitcase
After witnessing a terror attack, Nadav, a charismatic 12 year old Jerusalemite, decides that grown ups can no longer be trusted to bring peace to the region, and he must act. He starts a movement “Peace for the Future”. Nadav expects tens of thousands of children to join him. His enthusiasm is contagious. Nadav and his friends embark on an eventful journey. The reality he and his friends uncover, is a reflection of the world of adults, Palestinians and Israelis, living in shadow of war.

Waiting

Directors: Atul Gupta, Shabnam Ara
Courtesy: Magic Lantern Films
In war torn Kashmir, where armed forces come down heavily on innocent citizens and guerella groups keep spreading terror, in home after home, children and their mothers wait endlessly for the fathers to come back. They know at the back of their mind that father is no longer alive, yet, they dream of their father and keep their hopes alive.

Soapbox Race

SOAPBOX RACE (15 mins) Belgium
A moving story told without words about the growing loyalty between brother and sister. Jonas and Zoe team up to beat the invincible Kevin and win the soapbox race.

The snakeboy and the Sandcastle

A lonely little girl likes to build sandcastles by the seaside. Her friends do not appreciate her work of art. She finds warm companionship in a lonely little boy with a pet snake in his pocket. Let us see how they help each other out.