52nd Croatian Children's Film Festival starts in 10 days - everything's not like last year, or is it?
Children's Film Festival, as one of the oldest film events in Croatia has entered its 52nd edition. It is the only event in Croatia dedicated exclusively to primary school children's filmmaking, whether their films were made in the framework of school clubs or at cinema clubs as an extracurricular activity. Once a yearbest young Croatian filmmakers and their mentors get together.And not only that. During these four days, the Festival showstop films of the Croatian primary school cinemaon the big screen.
Croatian Children's Film Festival each year visits another city. This way, with the Croatian Film Club's Association as the organizer, the Festival changes elementary schools, film groups and cinema clubs across Croatia from year to year. This year, the Festival does not have two organizers, but even four, and is a guest in three cities. This year's Festival, along with the Croatian Film Club's Association is organized by Creative film studio Vanima, School of animated film Čakovec and Elementary School Martijanec and it takes place in Varaždin, Ludbreg andČakovecfrom 25 to 28 September 2014.
Submitted films were received from all parts of Croatia, and in this year's competition program included 92 achievements from Čakovec, DonjiKukuruzari, DugoSelo, Fužine, Gračac, Koprivnica, Korčula, Luka, Ivanovec, Macinec, Mala Subotica, Orehovec, Osijek, Rijeka, Sesvete, SlavonskiBrod, Split, Šibenik, Varaždin, VelikaGorica, Vrbovec, Vrbnik, Šipan, Zadar, Zagreb and Zaprešić. The most energetic groups come from Varaždin (Creative film studio Vanima with 20 listed films), Zaprešić (Photo Video Club Zaprešić with 9 films in the program), Čakovec (School of Animated Film Čakovec with 7 films) and Zagreb (People's University Dubrava with 7 selected films). Over 150 young authors and their mentors will join us in the North of Croatia.
Year after year, this great celebration of children's filmmaking grows and offers youngest filmmakers more and more diverse content. In the past year this children’s festival has established contacts with numerous partners who work with children or children's creations from around the world:
- Giffoni Experience, Italy - one of the largest children’s film festivals in the world that includes 3,500 members of children’s jury from around the world. This year, in July, Croatia was represented by RebekaČuljak and LucijaMajnarić from Photo Video Club Zaprešić and MiranRatkovic from Cinema Club Karlovac. Four children from Italy, members of the international jury: MatteoD'Arienzo, Carmine Tedesco, Chiara Sansone and Alessandro Constantino are coming to Varaždin, Čakovec and Ludbreg.
- International Youth Media Summit, Serbia / USA - Summit brings together young people from over 25 countries worldwide. Antonio Britvar from Hodačipožici Association and RajnaRacz from Classical Grammar School participated in the latest edition in Los Angeles.
- Giffoni Macedonia - Macedonian version of the Italian Giffoni. On the next edition, in October, Croatia will be represented by MoranaBunić and Iva Šobak from Creative Film Studio Vanima from Varaždin and Oar and Paula Kovač from the Association Zag, as members of the children’s jury.
- Universal Kids Film Festival, Turkey - the Istanbul Film Festival for Children. The Filmmakers deemed best at the upcoming Festival at the end of October will travel to Istanbul. Two children from Italy are coming to Varaždin, Čakovec and Ludbreg. They are members of the international jury: Francisco EmelTuzcuoglu and ZynepZontur.
- Children's Film Festival Seattle, USA - short films for children, from all over the world, rated the best at the festival in Seattle, will be shown before each screening in Varaždin, Ludbreg and Čakovec. Next year we expect members of the children's jury in Seattle to come to Croatia, as well as the departure of Croatian young filmmakers to Seattle.
- Tokyo Kinder Film Festival, Japan - cooperation is still in its infancy, but next year we can expect the members of the children's jury from Japan, as well as the departure of Croatian young filmmakers to Japan.
Cooperation with other festivals is conceived as a reward to those young filmmakers whose films are ranked best on Children’s Film Festival. What can be a better prize than travelling around the world, meeting new peers and starting new film collaborations?
Except for different cooperation, the novelty of this year's Festival is International children’s jury. So, with children from Čakovec, the jury will consist of children from Italy and Turkey (thanks to the collaborations mentioned), and Serbia (Sofia Nedić, Mina Lentijević, DarijaStefanović and IlijaStefanović), Slovenia (Veronika Strand, Julia Petani, Ivo Jakovina Hana Jakovina) and Hungary (RebekaGábeli, BotondGábeli, GroschPanni, SzatmáriDóra), composed of participants from the media education seminar-workshop program.
Also, novelties are interactive lectures titled The jury teaches us. Specifically, members of the jury Boris Poljak, Simon BogojevićNarath, MajaFlego and SlavenZečević will lecture about camera and recording, animation, film topics and editing respectively. In this way, the jury will not only criticize and praise, but teach young filmmakers something new.
Within the Festival will be held a seminar-workshop program of media education for leaders of film groups from the region (Croatia, Hungary, Serbia and Slovenia) supported by the Agency for Mobility and EU programs, i.e. program Erasmus+. The product of the seminars, among other things, will be a useful manual on media pedagogy in the region.
In any case, an interesting Festivalis before us, packed with events both for adults and children.
15.09.2014.