With audience participation across its discussions, workshops and screenings increasing over the first four days, the eighth edition of the Sharjah International Film Festival for Children and Youth (SIFF 2021) has also been reaching out to young cinema buffs in various schools across the UAE. Yesterday (Tuesday), hundreds of students aged 4 and above enjoyed 20 short films including Zog and the Flying Doctor; Don’t Give Up; Girls Talk about Football; and La Bestia.

SIFF 2021 offers an eclectic mix of films to cater to all tastes on Thursday, October 14

The Thursday streaming schedule includes an eclectic mix of short films. Migrants, which won the VIEW 2020 Award for the best short film and is being shown in the Middle East for the first time, chronicles the journey of two polar bears forced to migrate owing to global warming. They attempt to co-exist with regular brown bears, but how feasible is it?

Also having its Middle East premiere at SIFF is Last Round, an animated short that has been gaining fame and popularity for its universal story of sibling love. A graduation project by students of the GoergesMelies School of Animation, France, the film narrates the story of a promising young boxer who is willing to do anything to finance the future of his little sister, a piano prodigy.

Other interesting short films being streamed today include Fly, My Brother Luca, Windup, Mum Is Pouring Rain, Tiny T. Rex and the Impossible Hug, Mush-Mush and the Mushables, Tulip, and Kiko and The Animals.

Student films being shown today include Cell, which depicts a man tormented by his sins and haunted by the past; the humourousCoffin, in which a tired man tries to sleep but is thwarted by noisy housemates in a congested city in southern China; and 3 Murs & un to it, about the Alice-like adventures of a young girl Ava who is lost in her dreams. All three films are being shown for the first time in the Middle East.

The other student-made films being shown today are: Goodbye Robin!, Footsteps On The Wind, La Bestia, Umbrellas, Paul Verlaine: After Three Years, Mum’s Sweater, The Beauty, The Elephant’s Song,Trona Pinnacles, He Can’t Live Without Cosmos and Jebeer.

Walnut is the main feature being streamed today. The emotional Iranian film depicts young Soheilgrowing up emotionally as he learns to deal with his parents’ deteriorating relationship and separation.

A coming-of-age movie shot in Hebron over five years, Skies Above Hebron is a feature-length documentary from Netherlands about Amer and his brother who, like the caged pigeons he loves, are learning to live a restricted life as refugees in a foreign land.

In the Mini Cinema section, there are an array of short films including: Pencil, Yarne, Mommy’s Calf, Barcode, Opportunity, The Departure and Jeshoo.