With a newly elected President and Board in November 2020, new objectives for CIFEJ have been set. Secretary General Mohsen Chiniforoushan: “I am hopeful that the current board consisting of highly qualified and experienced members with a dynamic, motivated leader will soon take CIFEJ to its next level.”
Key objectives of “the new CIFEJ” are:
– To promote audio-visual media for children and young people;
– To support festivals and media educators;
– To facilitate research and exchange in the field of young people’s audio-visual media;
– To provide children with equal opportunities to express themselves through the camera by teaching them, as well as by screening their films.
Michael Harbauer, Head of CIFEJ Int’l Relations: “Now, at a time when physical travel has become difficult, the exchange of information is crucial, especially for festivals and seminars. Through dissemination on the mutual channels of ECFA and CIFEJ, particular small networks can be created between individual members. The aim is, together with our young audience, to discover new themes and issues and to give curated programmes a high status that transcends computer algorithms.”
To achieve these goals, CIFEJ has designated a series of flagship activities, such as:
– CIFEJ Days, containing workshops for young audiences, plus free screenings of CIFEJ Prize winning titles;
– The ‘Film in Schools’ programme, including “teaching the teachers” sessions;
– The CIFEJ Prize, celebrating quality cinema for youth;
– The CIFEJ Lifetime Achievement Awards.
President Jitendra Mishra has a strong belief in completing this mission: “When you want innovation, you need collaborations! Our key objective for now is to join hands with like-minded global organisations, government bodies and industry leaders who can complement and contribute to the common vision of CIFEJ, enabling us to reach out to young audiences globally through joint efforts. We are currently establishing regional offices in Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia and have already initiated the start-up formalities with partners from these regions. Individually we are just a drop, together we are an ocean!”
How will these objectives be influenced by the ongoing pandemic? Mishra: “We all have to rapidly adapt to virtual life and cultivate this volatile situation into opportunities. Our mission is to connect with the maximum amount of young global audiences. We have already lined up multiple online activities, such as a virtual film festival and talk shows with and for young people.”