Youngsters under the age of 12 in Taipei don't seem to have many choices when it comes to cultural or arts events. More often than not, TV and computer monitors are the only available channels beaming limited enter-tainment the youth of today. An oasis in this cultural desert of the children's world, the second edition of Taiwan International Children's TV and Film Festival (TICTFF) returns to the Taiwan Youth Activity Center in Taipei with a dazzling line-up of 120 films from 37 countries.
"In Taiwan, there are five million pre-school age children who watch an estimated 1,000 hours of TV per year. But all we see on children's TV channels are educational programs or cartoons from Disney and Japan. So we think a TV and film festival is a good starting point to introduce more possibilities and ways of thinking in terms of children's entertainment and cultivation," the festival's curator Wang Geng-yu (
The biennial event is divided into two main sections: competition and curated programs. Twenty-five feature, documentary, animation films and TV programs were selected from 251 entries in the competition sections.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TICTFF
Program highlights include My Brother Is a Dog from Germany, a feature film about the 10-year-old Marietta who makes a wish and turns her four-year-old brother Tobias into a puppy.
Max Between Sky and Earth is an animation short by Belgian director Jean-Luc Slock and 35 children depicts the life of a little boy who lives upside down on the ceiling.
An experienced and energetic animation artist, Slock has traveled the world teaching youngsters how to make animated films and encourages young filmmakers to think independently and make their own comments on the issues raised in the works.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TICTFF
In the curated section, the Animated Airport program showcases three feature-length works from Denmark, Mexico and Luxemburg, and 33 shorts from around the world, while the Time Machine program features classic movies such as Charles Chaplin's The Kid and the 1950s Hong Kong film The Kid (細路祥), starring the 10-year-old Bruce Lee (李小龍). Another must-see in the program is the Bollywood-style The Blind Camel from India. The film tells the story of a camel shepherd's two kids who cross the Pakistan-India border to find their missing camels.
This year's Nation in Focus is France. Selections of animated shorts from the Folimage Animation Studio and the world-class Annecy International Animated Film Festival guarantee non-stop entertainment packed with imagination, creativity and fun. Based on the children's story written by Charles Perrault in 1694, the feature film Donkey Skin is a more experimental version of the fairy tale and bears a strong resemblance to French master Jean Cocteau's 1946 Beauty and the Beast.
One distinct feature of the festival is the Kids As Director program that showcases 25 films made by children from Taiwan and other parts of the world. In collaboration with Kids for Kids Festival, an organization under the UN, TICTFF selected 15 movies from the festival to offer a rare chance to see what is in the minds of youngsters from Canada, Belgium, Mexico, Argentina, Norway, Armenia, Ukraine and other countries.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TICTFF
As an annual event taking place in one selected country each year, Kids for Kids Festival takes up the role as an international platform for children around the world to make their own voices heard. All the works to be shown at the festival were created by youngsters and selected by a panel of children jurists.
The program also includes 10 films made by Taiwanese elemen-tary school students and their teachers. The collective works began when 10 film projects were selected in the spring. Both teachers and students attended a five-day workshop in the summer and were assisted by film professionals such as directors Cheng Wen-tang (鄭文堂), Jay Shih (石昌杰) and film professor Hsieh Chia-kuen (謝嘉錕) throughout the shooting and post-production. The results include a wild dream in the virtual worlds, a hermit crab hero that saves the world, a team of students who try to save the "ill" roads from traffic jams and an indigenous tribal school in Nantou.
On the festival's closing night, a jury made up of children will decide its favorite film out of the 10.
"When organizing a children's festival, we constantly ask ourselves what is a children's film? Are we imposing a grown-up's perspectives and values on untinged and tender minds? Through the program, we let the children express their own thoughts and ideas, realize their own imagination and creativity," Wang said.
From Jan. 22 through March 11, the Public Television Channel will air a selection of films from both the competition and curated sections which include the Folimage Animation Studio package, feature films Waterbomb for the Fat Tomcat and Viva Cuba, animation pieces Little Vampire Goes to School and Don't Push Your Luck, the documentary Behind the Mountains and much more.
For detailed information on films and screening schedules, visit the festival's bilingual Web site at www.tictff.org.tw.
But the best way to experience children's cinema is to go to the theaters and enjoy the films with young audience members. As Wang puts it, "You will be pleasantly surprised at what you can learn from viewing a movie with hundreds of children around you." Plus, you will be also doing a good deed while enjoying a good film, since all of the ticket receipts will be donated to the Children Welfare League Foundation (兒童福利聯盟) which aids the victims of child abuse and domestic violence.
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