Courtesy of KidFilm Fest
Audio By Carbonatix
What do Shelley Duvall, Annasophia Robb and the Lorax have in common?
All three have been special guests of the USA Film Festival’s annual KidFilm Family showcase, returning for its 42nd year this weekend.
The event, held at the Angelika Film Center in Dallas, is entirely free to attend, offering attendees access to family-friendly films from around the world. At its heart, the program wants to encourage artistic engagement and foster media literacy.
The latter, in partucular, is of critical importance to the KidFilm programming this year. USA Film Festival Managing Director Ann Alexander says mainstream children’s programming tends to overemphasize “commercial viability,” rather than quality. At the end of the day, most popular youth media is meant to do little more than distract or help kids hone in on which toys to ask for on their next trip to Wal-Mart; education and positive messages are an afterthought.
“By the time the average child reaches school age, he or she will have spent more time watching TV and videos than the average college student spends in the classroom during four years of undergraduate school,” Alexander tells us.
Unless the average college student is cutting a lot more class than they used to, that statistic highlights the importance of KidFilm’s mission.
Because media consumption is foundational to contemporary culture, exposing children to quality programming, teaching them to think about it critically, and helping them articulate those thoughts is vitally important. When KidFilm was founded in 1984, that was, in a nutshell, the goal. As the media landscape has evolved, with smartphones and the internet making videos omnipresent, KidFilm has evolved with it.
While KidFilm may have its basis in film, the program promotes media literacy across mediums. To that end, the KidFilm Family Festival is known to bring in authors of children’s literature to share their work.
“Bringing notable children’s book authors to KidFilm addresses the festival’s mission to utilize the media arts to promote literacy skills in young children and to help foster a love of reading,” Alexander says.
Along with the annual festival, KidFilm has programs developed for educators to utilize in the classroom year-round that help teach students, in part, about the interconnectedness of different types of art.
This year, author Deborah Diesen will join the festival to celebrate The Pout-Pout Fish, a new film adaptation of her work. The festival positions it as a family-friendly adventure following “Mr. Fish, a pouty introvert, and Pip, an energetic sea dragon, who embark on a daunting quest to find a legendary fish to grant their wish to save their homes.” For parents, it features the familiar gravelly baritone of Nick Offerman in the lead role. After a screening of the film, Diesen will give away and sign copies of her work for kids who attend while supplies last.
While education is meant to be at the forefront of the weekend, the movies also offer entertainment. Films presented will be a mix of animated and live-action features, as well as 22 short films from around the globe, two of which were made by Texans.
Alexander says two other highlights from their lineup are The Last Whale Singer (another sea-based adventure, about a “teenage humpback whale who must face his fears”) and The Land of Sometimes.
The latter comes to Dallas courtesy of the United Kingdom, featuring an all-star cast that includes Ewan McGregor, Helena Bonham Carter and Mel Brooks. It also includes new music from Tim Rice, a renowned songwriter who helped craft the music for iconic ’90s Disney films, like The Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King.
The festival kicks off Saturday, Jan. 17 at 12:00 p.m.
Advance tickets for the KidFilm Family Festival are no longer available, but anyone interested in attending can stop by the Angelika during the festival to get tickets day-of or get more information online.
