The AIFF team hit the road late last month to bring an inspiring and educational lineup of films and workshops to youth across Nova Scotia. From March 20–26, over 900 students from 11 schools gathered at their local Cineplex to take part in the AIFF Kids School Tour. In-person events were held in Dartmouth, Bridgewater and Yarmouth, while hundreds more participated virtually in their classrooms through AIFF Kids Online.
Since 2002, AIFF Kids has presented a free curated program of features and shorts outside of what students would typically find in theatres or on streaming platforms. Films that explore the vast emotional journey of adolescence, tell them something about the world around us, and get them thinking about the possibilities of filmmaking as an artform. It’s a little taste of the AIFF experience designed specifically with young future filmmakers and film lovers in mind.
This year’s program included 28 films from over a dozen countries, presented in English, French, and Indigenous languages, and spanning everything from deeply personal docs to whimsical stop-motion animation. Our feature film for Grades P-6 was Butterfly Tale, an animated story of perseverance told through the migration of monarch butterflies. Each film was selected with the guidance of our Teachers’ Advisory Committee to align with Nova Scotia’s curriculum objectives.
The students brought a totally unique and precious energy to their screenings that set AIFF Kids apart from the typical festival fare. They entered the cinema with their own favourite snacks in hand, audibly marveling at the size of the screen before a single frame rolled; they exited budding film critics, with some of the youngest students reenacting their favourite scenes or debating which shorts were “fictionary or non-fictionary.”
At our filmmaking workshops, classes got the chance to dig deeper into what they’d seen and gain insight to how they were made. Halifax writer James Gregor hosted our screenwriting workshops, where he broke down the script of the original Star Wars to teach students about the “hero’s journey,” three-act structure, and other mechanisms that power our favourite stories. At our animation workshops, Dartmouth-born filmmaker Jenna Marks took students back in time to learn about the dawn of the moving image, introduced them to the tricks of the eye that make movies function, and guided them through creating their own flipbook animations.
As cinemas continue to rebound after the pandemic shutdown, and more and more of our movie watching has shifted to the home, it was a real joy to travel the province and see these screenings through the eyes of the students—some of whom were sitting down in a theatre for the very first time. AIFF Kids gave us a welcome reminder of the power and wonder to be found in the shared cinematic experience.
Now we look forward to the annual AIFF Kids Youth Film Competition coming next month in May! Submissions are still open to any Atlantic Canadian youth aged 18 and under- just make a 5-minute movie or less and submit it free for a chance to be a finalist and win awesome prizes! Details HERE or click the button below.