Farrar Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 So one of my ds8 has a budding new passion - he wants to be a filmmaker. His Destination Imagination group did a service learning challenge this year that required that they make a documentary movie and ds was the director. They won their regional and did well at states, though not well enough to go to globals. Anyway, he is asking me what's out there in terms of film festivals for children (dh does local acting stuff and has acted in several small local festival films, so he's vaguely aware of what a film festival is). I did some googling and turned up a mix of things, but some of them were clearly for films made FOR children instead of BY children. I thought maybe someone here might have the scoop on festivals specifically for kids to participate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 Our local library has a kid-made film festival/contest each summer. Perhaps yours does, too? The Monclair Film Festival has held a kids short film festival contest the past 2 years; it appears you make/enter the film in Oct-Feb. Scroll down about 2/3rds of the page to the subheading of "Festivals of Films Made by Youth" for a number of ideas from Parents' Choice website. Don't know if your DC would be eligible for this Australian contest: Australian Centre for the Moving Image: Screen It! Competition -- but it is now accepting entries for the Sept. 2013 contest. The Young Filmmaker's Club -- list of U.S. film festivals/contests for youth filmmakers. The Kid Filmmaker website has a big list of international film festivals, but also lots of other filmmaking supports and resources for youth. And another big list that is international, but with quite a few U.S. competitions: DIVA: Youth Visions: opportunity links (film festivals). Also, having a youtube account that you manage for your DS could give him a venue for screening his work. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted June 19, 2013 Author Share Posted June 19, 2013 Ooh, thank you, Lori! No film festival at our library. And none at the AFI, which is based here, sadly. I keep trying to get him interested in Youtube and making for making's sake, but he really likes having a specific goal and set of guidelines. I was thinking of running a weeklong homeschool film fest based around the 48 Hour Film Festival, which dh has participated in several times. I thought that would be fun - and very time limited. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 I also saw that previously the National Art Gallery had a film festival for works by kids, but... the page keeps coming up as "not found", so perhaps that is no longer an offering... Too bad, as I know that would have been near you! About the youtube videos -- I believe if you search hard enough, there are informal film competitions that people post through youtube. Also, does DS enjoy doing film animation? I'm betting there are film competitions esp. for Lego animated shorts. There's just *got* to be some things out there for young filmmakers with Lego animation! Check out Brick Films. I just think it would be super if your DS would have a youtube screening; I love watching the short films and videos made by the children of people who post on this board. :) Your homeschool film fest idea is super! Maybe it could be an online event so that homeschoolers here who have students who make films/videos could participate...? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted June 19, 2013 Author Share Posted June 19, 2013 I also saw that previously the National Art Gallery had a film festival for works by kids, but... the page keeps coming up as "not found", so perhaps that is no longer an offering... Too bad, as I know that would have been near you! About the youtube videos -- I believe if you search hard enough, there are informal film competitions that people post through youtube. Also, does DS enjoy doing film animation? I'm betting there are film competitions esp. for Lego animated shorts. There's just *got* to be some things out there for young filmmakers with Lego animation! Check out Brick Films. I just think it would be super if your DS would have a youtube screening; I love watching the short films and videos made by the children of people who post on this board. :) Your homeschool film fest idea is super! Maybe it could be an online event so that homeschoolers here who have students who make films/videos could participate...? Yeah, a bunch of the links turned out to be broken. :( Alas. I did find that there's a film festival in Brooklyn for kids, another in Chicago, and another in Portland, ME. The others I looked at so far were movies made by adults for kids, not the other way around. But the idea of doing a film festival online for homeschoolers would be fun. I could totally set that up... Maybe... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sugarfoot Posted June 20, 2013 Share Posted June 20, 2013 My kids have been doing films for years and have been in a lot of festivals, but for them, it really is their passion. The festival is always secondary, if that makes sense! It's been a lot of fun, though, and we've met some great people over the years at different ones. Here's a link to their website: http://www.dierenfeldtfilm.com They also have a youtube channel---same name, I think! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klmama Posted June 20, 2013 Share Posted June 20, 2013 This may be on Lori D's list... http://kcfilmfest.org/events/reel-spirit/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted June 20, 2013 Author Share Posted June 20, 2013 My kids have been doing films for years and have been in a lot of festivals, but for them, it really is their passion. The festival is always secondary, if that makes sense! It's been a lot of fun, though, and we've met some great people over the years at different ones. Here's a link to their website: http://www.dierenfeldtfilm.com They also have a youtube channel---same name, I think! Wow! Your kids are awesome! I'm totally showing this to ds for inspiration. And their list of film fests is much more current too. Do you guys actually travel and attend festivals? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sugarfoot Posted June 20, 2013 Share Posted June 20, 2013 Wow! Your kids are awesome! I'm totally showing this to ds for inspiration. And their list of film fests is much more current too. Do you guys actually travel and attend festivals? Aww, that's so sweet of you to say! Thank you! They work hard at it! They've actually won the festival linked above (Reel Spirit) several years in several categories. It's only a couple of hours from us. Sometimes we travel. We had a great time in Chicago and got to see The Gruffalo before it won an Oscar! It was inspiring to see the group there accepting the award. We wanted to go to San Luis Obispo, but in conflicted with another trip, so we missed it. They ended up winning Best Comedy there, and my DD won Best On-screen Performance. I wish we could've been there! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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