Under the patronage of His Excellency Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan, Minister of Culture, Youth & Community Development of the UAE, and strategic partnership with Dubai Film & TV Commission (DFTC), the 3rd edition of the Children’s International Film Festival (CIFF) opened today with a glittering start.
The opening ceremony was attended by HE Hussain Ibrahim Al Hammadi, the State Minister of Education, HE Sultan Saqer, Chairman of The Cultural and Scientific Association, and Yousuf Ozair Mubarak, IPR Director at Dubai Customs.
With a lineup of 117 films from 66 countries and 55 languages, including 61 films “Made in UAE” by students, CIFF2016 has a lot on the offering for your children and the child in you. The whole family can go out to see Oscar nominated animated feature “Boy and The World”, and Award winning German feature film “My Friend Raffi”, amongst several others.
Opening CIFF2016, His Excellency Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan, Minister of Culture & Knowledge Development of the UAE, said, “The creation of films virtually defines entrepreneurship. The UAE students who made films for the CIFF competition are glowing examples of entrepreneurs. They all took a chance. They thought and imagined and decided to make a movie. They had a vision of the end product, the film. They knew that they would never produce that film unless they planned – planned perhaps more carefully than ever before in their young lives."
“For the 3rd time in a row, His Excellency has granted us the privilege of hosting this festival under his patronage. We are really thankful to him for all his blessings. In addition to this, we have experienced tremendous interest from international filmmakers and the student filmmakers in UAE for this festival. We are humbled by this interest and their response to our call for entries. I hope the entire UAE enjoys all the films that we have in store for them starting tomorrow at Mall of the Emirates. And I also hope that we will continue to receive His Excellency’s blessings in future and similar interest internationally, regionally and locally”, said Mr. Deepak Jain, Founder & Director of CIFF.
Dubai Customs, the principal sponsor of CIFF, hit the Red Carpet Opening Ceremony of the Children’s International Film Festival 2016, and Ahmed Mahboob Musabih, Director of Dubai Customs stressed on Dubai Customs’ commitment to supporting such events that target the development of young talent who are the leaders of tomorrow.
“The UAE takes special care in developing the creative and innovative potential of young generations, in line with the directives of UAE leadership towards pushing the wheel of community development through fostering the talented and creative minds,” said Musabih.
Yousuf Ozair Mubarak, Director of Intellectual Property Rights Department said: “We aspire to see the Children’s International Film Festival 2016 have an active contribution to nurturing new generations of young talent and creative minds who will, one day, leave their mark on the cultural scene. The building of a generation that can keep pace with the future developments in all areas worldwide, makes the UAE move with confidence on the pathway set clearly by the UAE Vision 2021 and Dubai Plan 2021 towards creating a knowledge economy - that is based on investment in education, culture and honing the skills of young people, so they will be better able to interact with future smart information technologies.”