Filmlt: Festival celebrates socio-cultural heritage

From city's natural landscape to the lives of people who survive by doing mundane jobs, Indian heritage and its various aspects have been documented by students of 34 schools from across the city in form of short films that are being screened at a children's film festival here.
The 9th edition of 'Filmlt' organised by INTACH Delhi has roped in students who have attempted to define Indian culture and heritage in their own unique way by capturing some of the most neglected professions in their cameras.
"The idea behind this project is to let children do hands-on cultural activities out of their schools. We realised that children are visual in their way of learning therefore, camera is a medium which they understand very well.

"We wanted them to cover heritage and different facets of our culture. In the past, children have been able to discover the facets of Delhi's heritage in a completely different way, under this project," says Purnima Datt, Principal Director of Heritage Education and Communication Service at INTACH.
In most of the videos, children have presented a narrative on ways to save the heritage with focus on a particular subject.
Funded by the Helen Hamlyn Trust (United Kingdom), the project is part of the Open Futures Filmlt programme.

"We train students in content development and technical knowledge through a series of workshops. So far, over 2,500 short films of time duration of 2 - 3 minutes, have been prepared by the students in India. These films on heritage and culture are later shared with students in the United Kingdom," says Datt.

INTACH also organises heritage clubs in schools and short lists few of them under the project.
"We first set up a heritage club for the school and if the school shows interest in it, we involve them in the project.
"During the project last year, several schools adopted the local monuments which were then presented through the medium of dastangoi under the initiative 'Monument Speak'," says Datt.
According to her, the power of visual communication makes children understand things better.
"If they won't have the task of making a movie they perhaps won't have gone and met those people who do mundane jobs in their day today life. It is an initiative that helps children understand people and their cultures better.

"The process makes them understand the importance of Delhi as a hub of different cultures and heritage which needs to be preserved. We are trying to make children learn about the vows of the local community that live around the monuments and make them understand the importance of local monuments in their neighbourhoods," Datt said.
The project is annually held in nine other cities including Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chandigarh among others.