Lakhisarai Children’s Film Festival Enriched the Audience

Deepak Dua

For the first time, a film festival is organized in the small town of Lakhisarai in Bihar and famous people from Delhi and Mumbai come to participate in it and if big films are shown in that festival, then imagine what depth and sincerity must have been in the efforts of those organizing that festival. I realized this myself after participating in the ‘Lakhisarai Children’s Film Festival’ recently.

On the invitation of Shri Raviraj Patel, a writer-director, journalist and coordinator of this film festival, who has been engaged in awakening the cinematic spirit among the people, especially the new generation audience, through his film society ‘Cineyatra’ in Bihar for the last several years, when we reached Lakhisarai after covering a distance of about 125 kilometers by road from Patna, the capital of Bihar, we found that huge hoardings of this film festival were put up everywhere in the city.

As the main organizer of this film festival, Lakhisarai administration had made every kind of preparation in a very systematic manner. District Magistrate of Lakhisarai and Director of this Film Festival, I.A.S. Officer Shri Mithilesh Mishra himself was taking care of every small and big thing. Seeing the energy and positive attitude of Mithilesh Mishra, who was transferred from Patna just two months ago, I also thought that if all the young administrative officers work with such activism and positive thinking, then how much the environment around us can change.

On the first day of this Film Festival organized on the theme of ‘Nipun Bharat’ and ‘Beti Bachao Beti Bachao’, on the occasion of Children’s Day i.e. 14th November, the Bihar Deputy Chief Minister cum Minister of Art, Culture and Youth Shri Vijay Kumar Sinha was present as Chief Guest to inaugurate the festival in the magnificent auditorium of the newly constructed museum of Lakhisarai. In his address referring to the Film Policy of Bihar, Shri Sinha said that a provision of grant of up to Rs. 5 Crore has been made to the filmmakers who shoot up to a certain limit of their films in Bihar. On this occasion, District Collector Mr. Mithilesh Mishra also informed about organizing a film-quiz for children. Raviraj Patel said that apart from Lakhisarai Museum, films of this festival are also being shown in both the cinema halls located in the city i.e. Mahadev Talkies and Raj Cinema and the pleasant thing is that the owners of these two theaters have not charged any money for this. He also informed that the children participating in this festival have been selected through a small competition in government and private schools so that the children come here voluntarily and watch the films.

In this Festival, feature films like ‘Gandhi’, ‘Lagaan’, ‘Chak De India’, ‘Taare Zameen Par’, ‘Iqbal’, ‘I am Kalam’, ‘Andaman’, ‘Kasturi’, ‘Chidiya Khana’ alongwith many short films were screened. These include two award-winning films ‘The Silent Echo’ and ‘Bittu’ sent by Film Critics Guild, Kumaoni film ‘Shera’ produced by actor Vikas Kumar, Akhilendra Mishra’s ‘Baraat’ directed by Hitesh Dhawan and ‘Rang’ directed by Sunil Pal were shown.

During this film festival, which was organized in collaboration with National Film Development Corporation, Bihar State Film Development and Finance Corporation, Art-Culture Department of Bihar and all other government departments, some Master Classes were also held in which I, along with actor Vikas Kumar, singer Satyam Anand, Raviraj Patel, Art Culture Officer of Lakhisarai district Mr. Mrinal Ranjan etc. talked on various topics related to cinema and interacted with the audience and gave appropriate answers to their queries. On the last day of the function, Munger Division Commissioner Shri Sanjay Kumar Singh was present as the chief guest. On this occasion prizes were also given to the successful participants of the film-quiz.

(Deepak Dua is a renowned Film Critic, awarded with the National Film Award for Best Film Critic has written this article especially for us after attending this Film Festival.)