The 28thInternational Children Film Festival was performed from 3 to 6 of October in Isfahan. More than 300 films from 54 countries arrived to the secretariat of the international children film festival. According to assistance of communications and media affairs at 28thInternational Children Film Festival, Feryal Behzad (director), Rasool Sadre Ameli (director), Mohammad Ali Safoora (director), Dr. Javad Hatami and Amir Esfandyari were the members of the board of selection at international section of 28thChildren Film Festival. These members chose the selected works among all the sent films from over the world. The festival contained these sections:

 

  

International Cinema Competition

Feature Films Short & Medium Length Films Short & Medium Length Animations Full-Length Animations

Review Section

Czech Republic Short Films Panorama of Japanese Cinema The work of a filmmaker:  Otamar Gutmann , creator of Pingu Islamic Countries films Isfahan filmmakers completion Photo & poster completion Scriptwriting competition

Iranian Cinema Competition

Full-length animations Short & medium length Animations Short & medium length films Feature films

There were 2 educational and training meetings during the festival. The topic of the first one was: “The role of educational institutions on children and young adults’ cinema and impression of cinema on children”. The second one was about “The influence of TV, Computer and computer games on children and young adults.”

9 movie theaters were considered for screening of the films and 1 great hall was considered for every day meetings in which there were discussions about screened films.

Some city tours were planned for the foreign guests so they could visit many historical places and monuments of Isfahan. On Sunday 7thof Oct., all the guests were invited to a gala dinner hosted by the governor of Isfahan Province and Isfahan mayor.

One of the most interesting sceneries was the friendship which was formed between child and young jury members. You could see them everywhere with each other while talking and laughing and playing without considering that they are from different countries, with different cultures and religions. After the ceremony, when they were going back home, they were exchanging their email addresses and phone numbers while hugging each other and even some of them were crying. They made real scenes of humanity, kindness and pure love.

An International Jury with five members were selected from among film artists and critics active in the field of the intellectual development of children and young adults to evaluate separately live-action and animation films in the international competition. Nila Madhab Panda, a CIFEJ member from India was among them. An International Jury of Children and Young Adults evaluated separately animation films in the International Competition. There was also an international jury with three members appointed in coordination with CIFEJ, for choosing the best feature film to award the CIFEJ Prize. They were: Christine L. Mendoza from USA, Abdollah Alimorad from Iran and Dragan Milinkovic from Serbia.

There were also other CIFEJ members who had attended at the Festival like: Dimitris Spyrou from Greece, Shoaib Iqbal from Pakistan, Pouran Derakhshandeh, Ferial Behzad, Ebrahim Forouzesh, Ali Moallem and Mohammad Ali Talebi from Iran.

The Ending ceremony was held in the evening of 6thof Sep. in Kosar Hall. The first part of the ceremony was allocated to awarding the prizes of International Competition section. Mr. Amir Esfandiari, the head of International Affairs of Farabi Cinema Foundation was the performer of this part. He invited all the child and young jury members to the stage. Two of them (one from Germany and one from Romania) as the delegates of others, gave their opinions about the Festival and announced the name of the winners as follow:

Golden Butterfly Prize for Best Full-Length Puppet or Animation to Nancy Florence Savard for “Rooster Doodle-Do” from Canada Golden Butterfly Prize for Best Short or Medium-Length Puppet or Animation to Omid Khoshnazar for “All the Winters I haven’t seen” from Iran Golden Butterfly of Special Jury Prize to Alfredo Soderguit for “Anina” from Uruguay and Colombia.

Then Mohammad a child from Palestine, who is a painter and has had an exhibition of his paintings in Tunisia, Dedicated one of his paintings to the Festival and Iran.

After then, Mr. Esfandiari continued wit inviting CIFEJ jury members to the stage and they announced the “Promise” directed by Mohammad Ali Talebi from Iran as the winner of CIFEJ Prize.

 The prizes in international competition of Live-action films were awarded by the Jury members to the winners as follow:

Golden Butterfly Prize for Best Full- Length film to Paola Rota for “Bright Flight “ from Italy Golden Butterfly Prize for Best Direction of a Full-Length film to Mohammad Ali Talebi for “Promise” from Iran Golden Butterfly Prize for Best Film Script to Gert  Emberchts for “Allez Eddy” from Belgium Golden Butterfly Prize for Best Short or Medium-Length Film to Karel  Janak for “Jirka and the white mice” from Czech Golden Butterfly Prize for Best Performance by a Young Performer to Coen van Overdam for “Fidgety Bram” from Netherland Golden Butterfly Prize for Best Creative Technical or Artistic Achievements to Anna Van der Heide for “ Fidgety Bram” from Netherland Golden Butterfly Prize for Best Asian Feature Film to Mohammad Ali Talebi for “Promise” from Iran Golden Butterfly Prize for Best Jury Prize to Behrooz Karamizade for “Bahar in Wonderland” from Germany Golden Butterfly of Mohammad Al-Dowrah to Rani Massalha for “the Giraffada” from Palestine

The ceremony continued with awarding the prizes in other sections. It was really interesting that “Promis” the CIFEJ Prize winner film made by Mohammad Ali Talebi, won 3 other Prizes in other sections! Golden Butterfly for Best Full-Length Film, Golden Butterfly for Best Filming and Honorary Diploma for Best Adoptive Screenplay.

 Hojatollah Ayoubi, head of Iran Cinematic Organization, Mohammad Reza Jafari, CEO of Farabi Cinema Foundation and Mahdi Massoud Shahi, the director of the Festival, gave short speeches during the ceremony. And at last the 28thChildren Film Festival ending ceremony ended at 10 O’clock.