Film Festival on specially -abled persons 'We Care' inaugurated by Amity Group president

NOIDA (Uttar Pradesh), July 31 (ANI): It was a rare moment for the students, film makers and film enthusiasts when several luminaries from United Nations, UNICEF, academia and industry graced a glittering award ceremony of the ninth edition of the "We Care" film festival at the India International Centre here on Tuesday.

The aim of the "We Care" film festivals, which began in 2003, is to create awareness about disability issues through the medium of films and to foster integration in society by spreading the message of ability.

It is organized by Brotherhood in association with the United Nations Information Centre for India and Bhutan (UNIC), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the National Trust and the Asian Academy of Film and Television (AAFT).

The festival underlines the UN's commitment to inclusion- in both development and human rights perspectives.

The Chief Guests-Dr. Ashok K. Chauhan, Founder President - Amity Group of Institutions and Dr. (Mrs.) Amita Chauhan, Chairperson, Amity International Schools, Kiran Mehra Kerpelman, Director, UN Information Centre for India and Bhutan, Armoogum Parsuramen, Director, UNESCO in Delhi; Founder Chairman, Global Rainbow Foundation, Mauritius and Poonam Natrajan, Chairperson, National Trust shared their views during the ceremony.

Sharing his views during the occasion, Armoogum Parsuramen, Director, UNESCO in Delhi and Founder Chairman, Global Rainbow Foundation, Mauritius, outlined the mission of United Nations, which is to work towards the betterment of humanity across the world and shared that UN is contributing in numerous ways to empower the disabled persons by giving them education and skills.

Parsuramen remarked that the UN, government and institutions, if work together with synergized efforts, could jointly contribute towards ameliorating the condition of disabled persons across the country, leading to the betterment of the society.

While presenting awards to film makers, Dr. Chauhan said it is very heartening to see the films based on disability issues and opined that disables should be addressed as "specially-abled persons" as they extra powers by way of their intuition- hearing impaired develop great power to see and visually impaired develop great power to hear and feel.

Defining disability in a new manner, Dr. Chauhan stressed that the real disables are those who are egoistic and do not posses cultural values and knowledge of behavioral science.

He appealed the students to commit themselves to the cause of humanity specially the differently abled persons. Dr. Chauhan appraised the gathering with the two philanthropic projects of Amity Group -"Amitasha" and "Atulasha" which work towards the betterment of under privileged children.

Dr. Chauhan announced that Amity would wholeheartedly support the cause of "specially -abled persons", and especially, We Care Film Festival so that the it could achieve its aim of inclusion

Talking about Millennium Development Goals, Kiran Mehra Kerpelman, Director, UN Information Centre for India and Bhutan said that the commitment combined with perseverance can help achieve wonders and averred that the achievement of the first Millennium Development Goal of reducing poverty and hunger is difficult and unless and until disabled persons are integrated into the main stream society and the second goal of education for all could not be achieved till the time 98 percent disabled children get education. She stressed that the condition of disable persons in the country needs improvement for inclusive growth and overall development of the country

Satish Kapoor, Director - We Care Film Fest said that creating awareness on disability related issues through the medium of films is a new concept in India though, the world over such festivals are regularly held to disseminate the information about disability related issues .

Dwelling on the aim of the festival, Mr. Kapoor outlined that "We Care" Film Festival endeavors to integrate the disabled persons into the mainstream, at the same time, giving fillip to the rights-based approach where persons with disability are considered human beings first. "We Care aims to remove the myths, misconceptions, prejudices and stereotypes about disabled and disability in the society through the medium of films", he asserted

During the award ceremony, 16 film makers received awards in three categories- "1-5 minutes duration films", " 5 minutes duration films", "30- 60 minutes duration films" respectively. The proud recipients of the Awards included Mr. Santosh Kr. Panda for his film " Helping Hand", Mr. Aayush Nagpal for "Dhai Kadam", Mr. Subrata Kr. Sahu for " It is Possible", Ms. Aparna for " Drop of Sunshine", Ms. Torsha Banerjee for "Song of Butterfly" etc. The films very lucidly brought out the issues and concerns of "Specially -abled persons", their need and desire for love, sex and finally, finding a right partner.

During the occasion, Award winning short films of 1 minute, 5 minute and 30 minutes were screened, including Year 2008 Award winning film Virtue" produced by the students of Amity School of Communication " (ANI)

null