The students from the Lone Buaffalo English School in Phonsavanh, Laos PDR did a fantastic job representing their group at the recent Vientianale International Film Festival in the capital Vientiane. What a fantastic weekend they had, a trip to the American Embassy and a special meeting with the US Ambassador along with the presentation of their first ever film to a packed screening at the Cinema Department. They certainly did us all proud.

The ‘Xieng Khouang Experience’ a short 10 minute film directed, filmed and edited by a group of 26 students from the Lone Buffalo Foundation in Laos will premiere their film at the Vientianale International Film Festival on Friday 2nd March.  http://www.vientianale.org/
The students chose to make a film about their town, Phonsavan/Xieng Khouang, and selected the places they wanted to show people illustrating what is special and unique about the place they live in.
The film is in six short minute parts – Phonsavan streets, Market, Phu Chan Hill, Wat Sunthipath, Plain of Jars and H’mong Village.
It’s interesting how Unexploded Ordnance indirectly features throughout –bomb craters at the Plain of Jars, stacks of rusting UXO in the streets – even gold painted shell casings at the temple. It’s sobering how it has become part of everyday life in the province, nearly 40 years since the last bombs were dropped.
The film project was facilitated by Helen Ward from Kids for Kids UK and Jin Joo from Cinemasports who worked with the group of young filmmakers for 5 days in December 2012 guiding the young people through the filmmaking process from initial idea right through to filming, editing and sound design.
To watch the films visit the Kids for Kids UK Vimeo Channel here: http://vimeo.com/album/2188238
For more information on this and other projects email Helen at info@kidsforkidsuk.org

Check out the links:
Cinemasports – http://www.cinemasports.com
Vientianale International Film Festival – http://www.vientianale.org/
Lone Buffalo Foundation visit their facebook page http://www.facebook.com/lonebuffalo?ref=ts&fref=ts

The Streets of Phonsavanh from Kids for Kids UK on Vimeo.

This weekend, 18^th and 19^th January Valencia hosted the first edition of MICE (Mostra Internacional de Cinema Educatiu), an international festival about educational cinema created by the non-governmental cultural association Jordi el Mussol, and held in the wonderful La Rambleta Cinema complex.  More than 80 films from 30 different countries around the world were shown and many activities and workshops for children took place.

Kids for Kids UK travelled to the festival with our director Helen Ward attending along with freelance animator Sheryl Jenkins and young filmmakers Jacob Crow, Louise Brunn, Sam Ward-Hardy and Jayne Crow one of our parents.

Sam was given the job of being a presenter for the opening ceremony whilst Jacob was in charge of presenting at the closing ceremony.  Both lads did us proud and worked well with their Spanish counterparts.  Helen also gave the closing speech at the ceremony to a packed cinema of children, young people and adults including many film educators from all over the world.

As well as a packed programme of short film screenings, there were some wonderful screenings in small pop up tents where the most requested and played film was none other than Lego Dino Wars created by our local County Durham lad Jacob Crow.

Included in the programme was also a very interesting round table entitled “Kids, youth and media literacy” with the following speakers:

Günther Kinstler (Germany). Founder and board member of KinderKino Bonn e. V. where he organized film programs for children for twenty years. Nowadays he coordinates the Rainbow Project (Rights Against Intolerance Building an Open-minded World, a project that connects EU gay and lesbian associations, schools, media professionals promoting the rights of children and young people to their sexual/gender identity and orientation and who fight against homophobia and transphobia).

Paolo Beneventi (Italy), has spent the last 35 years working with children, theatre, video and media. He has held several projects both in Italy and in Cuba where children and youngsters expressed themselves through audiovisual means. He considers that video is a great channel for children to express themselves and tell about their reality. Here’s an extract from his personal web page that summarizes some of the ideas he shared at the roundtable:

Nikos Theodosious (Greece), artistic direct of Camera Zizanio, a European meeting of young people’s audiovisual. Theodosious considers audiovisual education as the ultimate tool for social action. He stressed the progressive switch from the communal, social act of going to the cinema, a public space where social interaction took place, to the individua act of watching TV, where spectators sit alone in front of the screen. Culture and arts are relevant expressions of democracy and should be a matter of society, not only of a few individuals.

Nuria Cidoncha, director of IVAC (Institut Valencià de Cinematografia), represented the institutional branch of the roundtable. She informed us about Valencian Government policies on media and audiovisual implementation in school curriculi.

Birgitta Olsson (Sweden), is a film consultant in the Halland Region and vice-president of an NGO about the implementation of media literacy amongst young people. She highlighted the huge gap between government policies and individuals and how culture and arts are a tool of empowerment for citizens and a way to make those individuals’ lives visible. She considered crucial to build a network between different countries no matter what their socioeconomic realities are.

Paula Jardón, University of Valencia’s School of Education vice-dean and founding member of Espacinema,  a project of implementation of audiovisual literacy in the teacher training curriculum as a way to promote the use of this kind of language as a teaching resource in the future. She stressed the relevance of making teacher trainee realize of the importance of reflection upon audiovisual materials. The first step would be to analyze how the teaching practice is portrayed in the movies or TV series in order to change some of its negative aspects and build a new and improved image.

Young editors having loads of fun creating a soundscore for their short film about a local temple in Phonsavan.

We have been collaborating with the USA based global filmmaking organisation Cinemasports run by Jin Joo  who has been working with us in County Durham running a 10 hour film challenge for young people from all over the world using the 3 required ingredients of a miracle, jump and an umbrella.  Over 30 films were entered from all over the world and you can watch them on our Vimeo Channel.  If you are interested in participating in a Cinemasports film challenge please email us at info@kidsforkidsuk.org.

‘Lovey Dovey” below is the winner of the Best UK submission by Remix from Washington Arts Centre

Lovey Dovey from Kids for Kids UK on Vimeo.