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CONTEST The World Craft Council intends to blend modernity with tradition through film. JANANE VENKATRAMAN

Imagine a time where one can fuse handicrafts with the unlikeliest of partners — movies, simultaneously spreading awareness about craft as well as encouraging the use of new mediums by students to express themselves. That’s what the International Craft Film Contest, conducted by the World Craft Council (WCC), aims to do.

This contest is one of the major events in the International Craft Summit that will be held to coincide with the 17th General Assembly of the WCC. In addition, the Summit will also have a seminar themed *The Future is Handmade’ along with an exhibition showcasing handicrafts from all over the world. This is also the first time that the WCC is organising a film contest for craft.

Usha Krishna, President of the World Craft Council says, “We wanted to showcase movies about craft to school children as way of sensitising them to craft. The visual medium has much more impact on children. But we found that there was a paucity of good movies about craft. So we thought, why not marry both craft and movies?”

The contest, aimed at students in the age group of 18 – 25, is open to entries from all over the world. The films need to be 8 – 10 minutes long and the hard copy should be submitted before 1 September, 2012. The entry form, which can be found on the WCC website, needs to be submitted by 1 August, 2012. The entries will be judged by a panel of international jurors and the finals will be held in Chennai. The top three entries will receive a citation and a cash award of of Rs. 5,00,000, Rs. 2,50,000 and Rs. 1,50,000 respectively. Mrs. Gayathri Srikanth, the Project Co-ordinator says, “All the entries we receive will be archived with WCC. The idea is to have as many entries as possible as we hope to use these movies to create awareness among school children. We need to show them that there is an alternative to plastic and paper.”  We already have a good response from Europe and Africa. We hope this is a success as this will help students be more aware of their own traditions as well” adds Mrs Krishna.
Contest topics:

• Crafts:  A fight for survival.
• Crafts: The magic of creation.
• Crafts:  A signpost of culture.

More details can be found at www.worldcraftscouncil.org

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