Film’s produced by the nation’s students will be screened at an upcoming film festival.

Dubai Customs has renewed its support for this year’s edition of the Children’s International Film Festival, CIFF, 2017, as the main partner.

Marking its 4th cycle next year, the region’s leading film festival for children will be hosted in Dubai next April, under the patronage of Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development.

This partnership with CIFF, for the second successive year, emphasises Dubai Customs’ firm belief in the importance of supporting the UAE’s march towards an innovative society and encouraging school children and new generations to become key participants in that march.

Dubai Customs aims to encourage young people to be engaged and help them become real producers of culture, through developing their imagination, abilities and creativity skills, sparked by watching movies and creating their own films to convey their thoughts, ideas and messages to the community.

"It is a priority for us at Dubai Customs to support initiatives that seek to promote children’s creations and innovations in all fields. This is premised on our conviction that nurturing the next creative generation is key to building a sustainable knowledge society and economy, which would ensure a brighter future for the UAE," said Ahmed Mahboob Musabih, Director of Dubai Customs.

Musabih remarked that last year, Dubai Customs had launched a filmmaking competition on intellectual property rights as part of the Children’s International Film Festival’s award competitions. The Dubai Customs contest is open for school students across the UAE, and teenage participants are invited to submit short films that bring fresh and innovative ideas to raise awareness of IPR and educate people about the perils of counterfeits and how to act against them. The best children’s IPR awareness films will receive Dubai Customs’ cash awards.

CIFF 2016 featured a unique blend of 160 age-appropriate films made in the UAE by students as part of the nationwide Filmmaking Competition and over 1156 international films submitted from more than 66 countries in 55 languages.