Category: Production

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

Lola Kenya Screen, the annual international audiovisual media platform—festival, production workshop and market—for children and youth in eastern Africa held in Nairobi every second week of August, has changed its festival dates from August 4-9, 2008 to August 11-16, 2008.

In a Press Statement released in Germany on June 3, 2008, Lola Kenya Screen explained the change has been ocassioned by ‘unscheduled change in the holiday calendar of public schools in Kenya. Lola Kenya Screen regrets this change but cannot help it as our primary target audience are holidaying school-going children and youth.’

Lola Kenya Screen is represented at the bi-annual Prix Jeunesse festival in Munich, Germany. It is one of various projects of Prix Jeunesse and the only one from Africa in 2008. Also presented at this world’s leading television programmes for children and youth is AFRICAN FOLK TALES ANIMATED, the DVD compilation of short films made by children during the annual Lola Kenya Screen film production workshop in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2007.

Lola Kenya Screen has also announced the short-listing of applicants to its various skill-development programmes and selected films from 52 nations. The organisation will release its festival line up to the media in Nairobi on June 10, 2008.

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.