Lucknow to host biggest children's film festival

Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow will host the biggest children's film festival in which several eminent personalities from India and abroad will be present.

The nine-day fest, starting from April 4, is being organised by the City Montessori School (CMS), the world's largest city school as per the Guinness World Records, CMS Founder Jagdish Gandhi said on Tuesday.

During the fest, educational and entertaining children's films from 101 countries will be screened. The entry is free, he added.

Cash prizes worth Rs 10 lakh will be awarded to films in various categories by a jury comprising Nils Mamros from Denmark, Lali Kiknavelidze from Georgia, Vidyashankar N. Nois and Shyama Prasad and Vinod Ganatra from India.

Several Bollywood stars, child actors and other renowned personalities including Anushka Sen, Japtej Singh, Rudra Soni, Aman Siddiqui, Rubal Jain and Darsheel Safari will attend the event, said International Children's Film Festival Director Varghese Kurian.

Highlighting the aims and objectives of the fest, Gandhi said films were a unique method of teaching human values to children "as they are informative, educational as well as entertaining".