Family Friendly Film Festival – 2006

The first ever Family Friendly Film Festival in Manchester brought children and adults together to celebrate the lure of the Big Screen

family-friendly-film-festival-spirited-away

Another family event that took place across Greater Manchester during the Late Summer Bank Holiday Weekend was the first ever Family Friendly Film Festival. In the words of its co-ordinator, Leah Byrne, the idea has been in the air for some time, and was finally brought to life – and to children and their parents – between 25th and 28th August, 2006. The event was taking place at such venues, as the Chinese Arts Centre, the Cornerhouse, the Green Room, the Manchester Museum, the Zion Arts Centre, and even Princes Park in Irlam in Salford. The festival was supported by Manchester City Council, Salford Council, Manchester Kids, the Workers’ Film Association, Robert Hamilton and Cosgrove Hall, Arts About Manchester, and Arts Council England.

Acknowledging the Children

The tagline for the festival was

“life is just as complex for kids as adults, so why should children’s films be superficial and formulaic?”

Instead of the Disney films there was an amazing selection of cartoons, shorts and features from all over the world. The festival premiered Eve & the Fire Horse (dir. Julia Kwan, Canada, 2005, 92 mins), which scooped quite a few awards, including the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival this year.

Other films at the Festival included the Oscar-winning Spirited Away, the Oscar-nominated Belleville Rendezvous, as well as some undying British classics, like The Wind in the Willows after the novel by Kenneth Graham. Three films by Eva Saks were also screened, Colorforms, Getting My Goat, and Confection. Confection, in particular, tells the story of a girl who learns empathy from a pastry – definitely a film to watch with a family!

Some other distinguished films were The Fan and the Flower, Chika’s Bird, Lucia, La Grande Migration, to name but a few. Open A Door series (2003) were also shown, an award-winning international exchange of 5-mins silent films. The series is aimed at the young viewers, illustrating the differences and similarities between the world’s cultures. Episodes come from Cuba, USA, Great Britain, Taiwan, Iran, Mexico, and South Africa. Whose Children Are These? (2004) looks at how the 9/11 has affected the lives of three Muslim teenagers. In Leah’s words, the aim of the Festival organisers was to bring such films to Manchester’s youngest viewers that would tell them about the bigger world and children that live in other countries.

Family Friendly Film Making

But children and their parents were not just watching films together – they could also dabble into filmmaking, providing they booked a place in a workshop. Several kinds of workshops were going during this year’s Festival, supported by the Workers’ Film Association. A workshop at the Greenroom was for teenagers between 10 and 15 yrs old, who were invited to create their own short films, using professional digital video camcorders and I-Mac work stations. Two workshops were held at the Zion Arts Centre in Hulme, a session of puppet animation for 5-10 year olds, and a Manga-themed animation workshop for 10-15 year olds. And a workshop at Princes Park in Irlam, Salford, was dedicated to wildlife animation and invited family members of all ages.

I went to the puppet animation workshop on Saturday, 26 August, at the Zion Arts Centre. In a large well-lit room children and their parents were sitting at the tables, absorbed in the task of making figurines of plasticine. The multi-aged and multicultural groups showed formidable team-working skills, especially when it finally came to shooting. The room periodically filled with bursts of laughter, especially when things were not going smoothly. At one point all props (plasticine pines) collapsed at the set of one of the features. At another set two plasticine “actresses” fell face down from their carton board bench. In spite of this, the filmings progressed well, the credits appeared, the “actors” bowed, and then the groups went on to edit their films.

The scripts, composed by children themselves, were anything but simple. One group’s film was about a squirrel visiting another squirrel and bringing a bag of hazelnuts. When opened, the bag contained a mouse, who was eating away the nuts! Another group made a film about two female friends who had to handle an uneasy task of sharing money between themselves. Yet another group’s film (by The Quincy Blake Production) was about two aliens fighting and then befriending on the Sun. In the words of Quincy Blake (a boy of about 7), he enjoyed making his movie. And in the words of one of the mothers, attending such workshop was not just enlightening, but also made her feel like going back to her childhood.

Where Adults Get to Be Kids

I must admit I felt I went back in time, too, despite the fact that I didn’t participate in preparing the sets or props, or in the actual filming and subsequent editing. Simply the glee and the spirit of team-working have filled the ground, so it was almost impossible not to immerse oneself in this wonderful atmosphere.

The first Family Friendly Film Festival will definitely not be the last, although it did take a lot of time, pain and money to obtain clearances for screenings, especially of such films as the multi-winning Spirited Away, Belleville Rendezvous, and Eve and the Fire Horse. However, with the obvious success of this year’s Festival the plans will be growing bigger for the next year, and Leah Byrne has told The LOOK that the BBC is already looking into taking part with a workshop on score-writing. So, watch out for the Family Friendly Film Festival next year (www.familyfriendly.org.uk), and in the meantime check out this year’s list, and try and catch the films you haven’t yet seen!

The List of the Family Friendly Film Festival

Holes (dir. Andrew Davis, USA, 2003, 117 mins)
Raju & I (dir. Gayatri Rao, India, 2003, 30 mins)
Whose Children Are These? (dir. Theresa Thanjann, USA, 2004, 27 mins)
Getting My Goat (dir. Eva Saks, USA, 2005, 2 mins)
Colorforms (dir. Eva Saks, USA, 2003, 8 mins)
Maya – the Indian Princess (dir. Kavita Ramchandran, USA, 2005, 3 mins)
Happy Holy Maya (dir. Kavita Ramchandran, USA, 2005, 2 mins)
Dial ‘M’ for Monster (dir. Kevin Nikkel, Canada, 2003, 1 min.)
Open a Door (Cuba, USA, Great Britain, Taiwain, Iran, Mexico, South Africa, 2003, 7×5 mins)
Welcome to My Life (dir. Elizabeth Ito, USA, 2004, 5 mins)
Circuit Marine (dir. Favez Isabelle, France, Canada, 2003, 7 mins 50)
The Wind in the Willows (dirs. Mark Hall and Chris Taylor, UK, 1983, 79 mins)
Eve & the Fire Horse (dir. Julia Kwan, Canada, 2005, 92 mins)
La Grande Migration (dir. Youri Tcherenkov, France, 1995, 7 mins 54)
Let’s Play (dirs. Francois Lecauchois, Cassandre Hornez, France, 2003, 26 mins)
Confection (dir. Eva Saks, USA, 2003, 5 mins)
Lucia (dir. Felix Goennert, Germany, 2004, 8 mins 30)
Chika’s Bird (dir. Adam Mars, Canada, 2003, 15 mins)
The Fan and the Flower (dir. Bill Plympton, USA, 2005, 7 mins 10)
Spirited Away (dir. Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, 2001, 125 mins)
Yoko! Jakamoko! Toto! (dir. Tony Collingwood, UK, 2005, 2×4 mins 30)
Bark, George! (dir. Gene Deitch, USA, 2003, 6 mins)
Eddy and the Bear (dir. Tony Collingwood, UK, 2003, 9 mins 30)
The Pipsqueak Prince (dir. Zoia Trofimova, France, 2002, 7 mins)
Animal Stories (dir. Tony Collingwood, UK, 2001, 2x 5 mins)
Gorden the Garden Gnome – The Veggie Pet (dir. Tony Collingwood, UK, 2005, 11 mins)
A Fortune in Frozen Dim Sum (dir. Ling Chiu, 2004, Canada, 13 mins)
Belleville Rendezvous (dir. Sylvain Chomet, France/Canada/Belgium, 2003, 80 mins).