Signis

SIGNIS-Romania’s “Facing Children”: a Film Festival for Child Rights

Bucharest, October 9, 2006 (Signis) - SIGNIS-Romania, in partnership with UNICEF, is organizing a project aimed at promoting Child Rights through movies: the “Facing Children” film festival. “Facing Children” will take place from November 15 to 20 in Bucharest, Romania; the festival will then go on tour from December 5 to 10 in Iaşi and Timişoara.

Teenagers directing a "One minute" film during the SIGNIS-Romania workshop in Timisoara

The project is a development of the first edition of the film seminar “Facing Children”, organized by SIGNIS-Romania in November 2005, and is part of a broader initiative launched by SIGNIS-Romania and UNICEF, including the organization of video workshops for children and teenagers and the production of 16 short films for the Oneminutesjr project. This project is a platform for children to express themselves through one minute films that are broadcasted on the Oneminutesjr website (http://www.theoneminutesjr.org) and in festivals across the world.

The Festival will focus the attention of the public on children rights, through three main sections:

Forum - selection of 10 fiction films on a social theme, which won prizes in international competitions and were also awarded by SIGNIS. The screenings of the fiction films will be followed by debates with the directors and specialists in child protection. The audience will be made sensitive to the issues debated and will be stimulated to get involved in solving the problems (see Forum Program).

Rainbow - a competitive section of social documentaries focused on children. Three prizes will be awarded for best documentary, for best subject and the audience award. The competition will be opened and closed by screenings of international awarded documentaries such as Born into brothels (USA, 77 Oscar), Living rights (Holland, 2004).

Child Buster - a section of movies for children, where 3 fiction or animation films for children, a selection of 10 short animation-films and 3 films in retrospectives will be screened. Before each movie, the short-films produced by the teenagers during the workshops will also be screened. The screenings will be followed by different activities for children.

The objectives of the Festival are:
  to promote children’s rights through movies and movie making;
  to provide opportunity for children/teenagers at risk to express themselves through photography and video productions and to make known their vision on children’s rights to the public and to the decision makers of the Romanian society;
  to foster the collaboration in the field of education between cinema professionals, social-workers and psychologists.

On November 20, The World Day for Children, the Festival will also host a symposium on film and children’s rights.

SIGNIS ROMANIA since its creation in 2003, has set as its goal to promote audiovisual production, to organize trainings and seminars and to represent the catholic media on national and international level.

More information on the Festival

Forum Program

Screening Program

Accreditation

Contact: aberlogea@yahoo.com

SIGNIS