Category: Distribution

BY OGOVA ONDEGO. NAIROBI, KENYA (CINEMA MINIMA) — Eastern Africas premier annual international audiovisual media platform for children and youth, Lola Kenya Screen, has announced the films to compete for its 3rd Golden Mboni Award. Some 24 films out of the more than 389 submitted shall seek to outdo one another during the festival that runs August 11-16, 2008 in Nairobi, Kenya. This award has been won by Ukraine and Israel in 2006 and 2007, respectively.

For a film to make it to the official Lola Kenya Screen competition, its content must be creative, demonstrate artistic and technical mastery, speak positively to children of diverse backgrounds and cultures and should provide strong role models for both boys and girls. Additionally, the action of such a film should be child-driven, with the stories being culturally authentic, timely, and of universal appeal. Above everything else, such films should be made by, with and for children and youth rather than about children and youth.

The films competing for the 3rd Lola Kenya Screen Golden Mboni Award are:

• SUBIRA by Ravneet Chadha, Kenya
• MANPASAND/The Perfect Match by Dhvani Desai, India
• I AM ZEINAB FROM LEBANON by Salwa Saab, Lebanon
• HELLO SPRING by Masoone Jafari, Iran
• THE MAGIC TREE: DEVOURERS OF BOOKS by Andrzeej Magescka, Poland
• WORMHEAD by Manauvaskar Kublall, USA
• STI SKIA/In the Shadows by Dimitris Apostolou, Greece
• MAX’S WORDS by Galen Fott and Jerry Hunt, USA
• MIT MEINEM VATER LEBTE ICH AM MEER by Anke Lanzon and Jan Stutz, Germany
• JOURNEY OF A RED FRIDGE by Lucian Muntean and Natasa Stankovic, Serbia
• SIRI RAJA SIRI/King Siri by Somaratne Dissanayake, Sri Lanka
• GAROTO COSMICO/Cosmic Boy by Ale Abreu, Brazil
• QUAMAR/Working to Live by Preeya Nair, India
• HOPPET/Leaps and Bounds by Petter Nss, Sweden
• FORORTSUNGAR/Kids in da Hood by Ylva Gustavsson and Catti Edfeldt, Sweden
• SUDEN ARVOITUS/Mystery of the Wolf by Raimo O Niemi, Finland
• CYKELMYGGEN OG DANSEMYGGEN/A Tale of Two Mozzies by Jannik Hastrup and Flemming Quist Moller, Denmark
• ONNI VON SOPANEN by Johanna Vuoksenmaa, Finland
• STANDING ALONE by Gholam-Reza Ramezani, Iran
• KARLAS KABALE/Karla’s World by Charlotte Sachs Bostrup, Denmark
• PORQUE HAYCOASA QUE NUNCA SE OLVIDAN/ Because There Are Things You Never Forget, by Lucas Figueroa, Spain

Besides the official competition, Lola Kenya Screen 2008 plans to shows films in seven other categories: Films by Children, Kids for Kids Africa Competition, The Prix Jeunesse Window on the World, Eastern Africa Prism, Shorts of Africa, World Panorama, and La Matatena Associa De Cine Ninas Y Ninos. The full list of selected films is online.

All the films submitted to Lola Kenya Screen 2008, even those that did not make it to any of the eight official sections, will be available for private viewing during the festival.

The film submission to Lola Kenya Screen has for the third time demonstrated that Africa has a long way to go in the making of and promotion of films for children and youth. Only a handful of films came from Africa out of which only one made it to the 24-film official competition.

The countries continuing to register their interest in Lola Kenya Screen have increased from 39 and 46 in 2006 and 2007 to 53 in 2008.

The 2008 film submission came in from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Burkina Faso, China, Colombia, Congo-Kinshasa, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Mongolia, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Scotland, Senegal, Serbia, Spain, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Tanzania, Uganda, USA, and Zimbabwe. [Artmatters.info]

BY OGOVA ONDEGO. NAIROBI, KENYA (CINEMA MINIMA) —.

The participation application deadline to the third edition of Lola Kenya Screen that holds in Nairobi the second week of  2008 August closed on 2008 April 15 with 300 film submission from 45 nations.

Lola Kenya Screen, eastern Africa’s premier audiovisual media platform exclusively designed for children, youth and family, has received films by children, youth, students and adults from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Burkina Faso, China, Colombia, Congo-Kinshasa, Denmark, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Scotland, Senegal, Serbia, Spain, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Tanzania, Uganda, USA, and Zimbabwe.

Also applying for participation in the official Lola Kenya Screen skill-development programmes for children and youth–Film Selection Committee, Film Jury, Festival Press, Event Presentation, Film Production Workshop–were applicants from Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Those eligible for participation are usually residents of Nairobi and its environs due to what the festival management describes as ‘logistical reasons’.

This development comes at a time when Lola Kenya Screen has been selected to spearhead the development of audiovisual media content for children and youth in eastern Africa. Being a fully fledged organisation specialising in children, media and culture, Lola Kenya Screen is to work with festivals in Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Rwanda in adding children’s film sections to their programmes.

During an eastern Africa film festival network development meeting in Brussels, Belgium, on 2008 April 22, players from Belgium, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Rwanda chose Lola Kenya Screen to be the lead partner in the region.

The Lola Kenya Screen initiative is set to be presented to the world during Prix Jeunesse, the world’s leading television programmes for children festival in Munich, Germany (2008 May 30-June 5).

Lola Kenya Screen, that has already been presented in Rwanda, Uganda, and Belgium where Lola Kenya Screen films by children–AFRICAN FOLK TALES ANIMATED–have also been showcased, will also feature in Zanzibar in July 2008.

AFRICAN FOLK TALES ANIMATED, the compilation of three-film and three-song DVD made by children and youth during the 2nd Lola Kenya Screen in 2007 continue on the international film circuit as more invitations come in for them. The latest invitation is from the London Film Festival for Children that takes place in 2008 November.

The Lola Kenya Screen DVD has already been screened in Tampere, Finland (2008 March 4-9), Kigali, Rwanda (2008 March 16-30), Brussels, Belgium (2008 April 14-25), Kampala, Uganda (2008 May 1-11), and Berlin, Germany, (2008 May 21-25).

The whole compilation will then move to Prix Jeunesse, the world’s leading television programmes for children festival in Munich, Germany (2008 May 30-June 4).

Produced by Lola Kenya Screen, these films—that were made by children aged 9-15 years during the 2nd Lola Kenya Screen film production workshop (August 6-11, 2007)—that premiered at Lola Kenya Screen on 2007 August 11 have since been shown on KBC Television (2007 December and 2008 January).

The inaugural Lola Kenya Screen production—FILMS BY CHILDREN FOR CHILDREN—won the Grand Prize at the 5th World Summit for Media and Children in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2007 March. Since then, there has been no looking back for Lola Kenya Screen that is an annual international film festival, production workshop and market focusing on children and youth in eastern Africa and holding in Nairobi every second week of August.

FILMS BY CHILDREN FOR CHILDREN was shown in Kenya, Poland, Senegal, South Africa, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, and Holland, among other countries.

The organisers of Lola Kenya Screen are working with Zimbabwean producer Rumbi Katedza in bringing young people from Zimbabwe to Nairobi for a cultural exchange through the audiovisual media.