Winners of 1st Jordan Children's Film Festival announced

AMMAN — The juries of the first edition of the Jordan Children's Film Festival (JCFF), organised by the Royal Film Commission – Jordan (RFC), revealed the names of the winning films at the closing ceremony on Sunday evening.

Over four days, the JCFF offered children the opportunity to watch a selection of four feature-length narrative family movies and 14 narrative and animation shorts from 12 countries, according to a RFC statement.

The films are all recent productions, and most have been awarded internationally. The screenings were followed by inspiring discussions with film experts that allowed the children to express their opinions and exchange ideas with their peers, instead of being mere content consumers.

The jury of adults was made up of professionals working in the audio-visual sector — the producer Khaled Haddad, the Manager of Ro’ya Kids Platform Lara Safadi and the Head of the Theatre Department at the Ministry of Education Bassem Awad — and granted the Best Feature Award to “Butterfly’s Heart” by Inesa Kurklietyte from Lithuania. 

Commenting on this selection, the jury said: “The film addresses bullying in a creative and smart way as it shows the parents’ role in supporting their bullied child as well as the child’s sharp intelligence in confronting the bullies.”

The jury also gave a Special Mention to the Irish animation feature film “Wolfwalkers” by Tom Moore and Ross Stewart.

In the Short Film Category, the jury awarded Best Prize to the Algerian short narrative film “White Night”, by Issam Taachit, as “the film promotes the concept of friendship and accepting others with their differences. It is creatively done using animation techniques”, as per the jury’s statement.

The RFC formed a second jury made up of children. Their choice went to the Canadian narrative film “Corvine”, by Sean MacCarron, as the Best Short Film. The young jury highlighted the importance of the issues that the film tackles, such as encouraging children to accept who they are, rejecting bullying and promoting parents’ role in supporting their children’s hobbies as well as unleashing their imagination.

The three winning films will receive cash prizes.

The audience also had its say, and voted for the Irish movie “Wolfwalkers” as its favourite.

The festival also organised a closed panel discussion tackling the lack of Arab cultural productions targeting children. The panel featured the participation of the director of Haya Cultural Centre Reem Arida, the children's stories author Taghreed Al Najjar, the producer Khaled Haddad and the director Bassem Awad.

The panellists discussed ways to increase cultural productions that target children in the Arab world, and came up with a series of recommendations, including: Integrating a course for filmmaking students at Jordanian universities focusing on creating content for kids; getting the private sector on board to support producing content for children; allocating a film fund that encourages Arab filmmakers to create works suitable for children; cooperating with the public sector’s entities concerned with developing cultural and educational policies that target children; networking with other children’s festivals to benefit from international and Arab expertise; organising workshops to raise awareness, in addition to creating a financial prize to develop special content for children for the next JCFF’s edition.

In order to reach a larger audience, the RFC reached out to SOS Children’s Villages Jordan, Doctors without Borders and the RFC’s Film Centres in Mafraq and Salt. The JCFF attracted over 1100 attendees.