Lola Kenya Children's Screen

The first edition of Lola Kenya Children's Screen is scheduled for August 7-12, 2006.

Lola Kenya Children's Screen was established in October 2005 to:

• make the means of film production accessible to new, up and coming talents
• build an audience for African films by encouraging culturally relevant, audience-sensitive films in local languages, cultures and reality
• promote film skills and develop talent in Kenya
• produce at least six films each year from film production workshops
• collaborate with national and international partners in the training of young talents who would like to further their expertise in the fields of screenplay writing, cinematography, art department, sound, acting, directing, producing.

The first edition of Lola Kenya Screen was held August 7-12, 2006. The next Lola Kenya Screen shall hold August 6-11, 2007 in Nairobi, Kenya.Details of this are posted at http://artmatters.info/?articleid=43.

Successfully executed with more than 4000 children, youth and adults turning up, it is hoped the second edition of Lola Kenya Screen-Nairobi on August 6-11, 2007, will achieve even more success.

Below are results of the specific programmes Lola Kenya Screen and their results:

Children Make Films The Lola Kenya screen Film production Workshop had set out to make at least five short films but ended up making EIGHT child-centred productions, a fete many film festivals have not achieved, even after having been around for decades!

Children Report Besides making films, a selection of SIX children making up the Children’s Press were involved in the daily reporting of the festival events. Their articles were published DAILY on ArtMatters.Info--http://www.artmatters.info--the official media partner of Lola Kenya screen.

Should you wish to follow the daily proceedings as seen through the eyes of our Children's Press, please do not hesitate to visit the following links:

http://www.artmatters.info/lolaexceedexpectations.htm http://www.artmatters.info/loladay5.htm http://www.artmatters.info/loladay4.htm http://www.artmatters.info/loladay3.htm http://www.artmatters.info/loladay2.htm http://www.artmatters.info/loladay1.htm http://www.artmatters.info/madline.htm

The mass media in eastern and southern Africa also reported on Lola Kenya Screen. A sample of their reports are online at http://www.artmatters.info/lolainpress.htm

Reporting for ArtMatters.Info, Edwin Onyango of the Children Press describes the festival as having exceeded expectations. “After six days of film shows, film production workshop and the audio-visual market activities and debates, the inaugural Lola Screen ended at 7.30 PM on August 12, 2006,” reports Onyango. “Lola Kenya Screen festival, production workshop and market for children and youth whose official opening had been at Goethe-Insitut six days earlier, closed at Alliance Francaise. It was marked by the awarding of deserving films and presentation of certificates.”

Lola Kenya Screen Films Shown Globally From the film production workshop conducted by ANTONIA RINGBOM of Finland, 15 children aged 8-15 years made Targe Can't Crack It, Mary's Bad Luck, Marathon, Home Run, Crime Doesn't Pay, Making Choices, My Dear Alien, Happy Times, and Shopping Spree that were compiled into a single DVD called Films by Children for Children. All the films, conceived, written, story-board-written, directed and animated by children under the guidance of Ringbom, deal with the daily lives of the children involved.

Films by Children for Children has already been shown at Lola Kenya Screen and Prix Jeunesse International Suitcase Workshop in Kenya, GDYNIA festival in Poland, at 11th Sithengi and Cape Town Film Festival in South Africa, and in Berlin, Germany. A selection of these shorts are mainstreamed online in Germany.

Plans are under way to show Films by Children for Children at the Fifth World Summit on Media for Children in Johannesburg, South Africa (March 2007), and at Amakula Kampala International Film Festival, Uganda (May 2007), among many other festivals around the world.

Films by Children for Children compilation was not only showed at the 11th Sithengi on November 17, 2006, to full house, but was also put in the Sithengi Product Market for any one who did not watch them at the festival to access them. This widens the audience base even further as one can watch the films whenever and wherever one desires to by logging in onto the Sithengi Product Market.

Children Judge Films A panel of judges made up of SEVEN children aged 8-11 years judged the films for various awards.

216 films, 38 countries, five continents entered Out of the 216 films submitted to Lola Kenya Screen from 38 countries, 84 were shown in Nairobi; 24 competed for the festival’s top prize, the Lola Kenya Screen Golden Mboni Award.

Debates on Literature and Cinema Discussions on the interface between cinema and literature (ably handled by Prof Kavetsa Adagala of the University of Nairobi) and whether Africa should adopt the Nigerian Nollywood and Kenyan Riverwood models of filmmaking or the American Hollywood and Indian Bollywood styles (facilitated by producer Anthony Murimi of Timesquare, a Nairobi’s River Road-based production house) were held.