Minister for Communications and Information Technology Rekha Sharma said the need of the hour is to sensitize and educate children and youths about Nepali films so as to make them understand the importance of country’s arts and cultures.

Inaugurating the first National Children Film Festival-2080 in Ghorahi of Dang district on Friday, Minister Sharma commended the efforts of the organizer-Film Development Board- for correctly educating children and youths about Nepal’s arts, cultures, traditions and civilizations through the use of information technology.

The three-day festival will provide enabling environment for the children and teenagers to share their stories and to understand country’s art and cultures through the motion pictures. The Minister in the inaugural expressed her concern over the increasing influence of westernization in the recent times that, she viewed, was attacking the originality of the Nepali art and culture.

The festival as such would play a role to educate young audiences of the Nepali society. She also expressed her confidence that the festival would be a milestone in making children understand the meaning of films, educating them about the dimensions of the films and thereby encouraging them to build a civilized society.

Stating that Nepal is rich in arts and cultures, the Minister spoke of the need to internationalize Nepal’s arts and cultures. She acknowledged the film sector as an important sector for those willing to build their personality and expressed her expectation that the event would encourage the young audiences to build their career in the film sector. “Films not only entertain the audience but also have multiple dimensions. Humans hugely benefit from the knowledge and information provided by the films besides the awareness,” she observed.

On the occasion, the Minister articulated her concern over increasing misuse of information technology and said that this should be stopped while children should be encouraged to leverage information technology for their advantage.
“Information technology would be useful to impart knowledge and teach skills for children. Informative movies would also be useful to educate them. The children should be kept away from misuse of information technology,” she said.
The Board was suggested to prepare and send Nepal’s children movies to international children film festival.