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‘I am Kalam’ the feature film produced by Smile Foundation, has won the Best Feature Film at the Lucas Film Festival. The award was announced by the Lucas jury in the award ceremony held on 10th September 2010 in Germany. Lucas is a 35 year old International Children’s Film Festival that presents sophisticated and promising productions aimed at children 4 to 12 years of age. This is an independently selected competition programme that consists of artistically and thematically valuable films to make foreign cultures understandable for children.
The film has also won the Don Quijote Prize of the Fédération Internationale des Ciné-Clubs (FICC). This international association was set up in 1947 in Cannes (France) among groups of film societies in countries throughout the world. Since 2004, FICC gives out awards every year to one exemplary film competing in the Lucas Film Festival.
‘I am Kalam’ has also been selected as a nomination at the prestigious National School Film Week and BFI London Film Festival and in 5 other honorable festivals for global cinema for the year – in the Children’s Feature Film category at the Asia-Pacific Screen Awards, Oulu International Children’s and Youth Film Festival (Finland), Cinekid International Film Festival (Amsterdam), New York Children’s Film Festival and London Children’s Film Festival.
The plot of ‘I am Kalam’ revolves around the trials and tribulations that a small boy faces yearning for education. It summarizes a fairy tale treatment to the dreams of the protagonist, Chhotu, and how he dares to achieve them in spite of all the odds. The central plot of the film is in sync with the recently enforced RTE Act and stands for thousands of such aspiring children of the country. The film is a directorial debut of Nila Madhab Panda.
