2007

VIDEOTIVOLI…is true for the fourth time 

Pirkko the red parrot strutted in Tampere from March 6th to 11th in 2007 giving numerous films made by children and young people a life on the cinema screen. Festival was held in Tullikamari and Plevna 5.

In addition to the screenings Videotivoli also arranged a media seminar Listen to me – young people got something to say at the university’s Väinö Linna auditorium from March 8th to 9th. The seminar gathered around 130 people to talk about youngsters’ involvement in citizen participation, making the world a better place and how young people can make a difference through media. The seminar featured a delegate of Unicef, the maker of the film series African spelling book, and several other specialists.

Samiland and Africa were strongly present in both Tampere Film Festival and Videotivoli as filmmakers and guests. The staff of Children’s Centre Rulla lead children in animation related hobby activities and introduced Having Soul – Puppets as animation stars exhibition to the visitors. In the same place on March 8th and 9th Samiland presented itself to children in workshops.

SCREENINGS
Videotivoli received over 500 works. The festival week presented 133 films made by 4- to 18-year-olds. This year’s Videotivoli had 18 screenings, of which 10 were different, directed at children and young people. All films shown were under 10 minutes in length.

Kindergarten
The screenings directed at kindergarten children consisted of animations made by 3 to 12-year-olds from eight different countries. Sami gnome Staalo saves a nation, a seagull tests its wings, and the adventures of a greedy pig were some of the stories told in these animations. 

Primary school (younger pupils)
Mister Mouse dreams of cheese and a surprise in the mirror were some of the films from the screenings designed for the younger pupils of primary schools. Screenings consisted of animations, documents and live actions from eight different countries, Canada and Turkey being the farthest.

Primary school (older pupils)
In the screenings for the older pupils of primary school films featured sorcerers, a mechanised home and a stressful aunt. A more serious subject was dealt with in a Thai document of the tsunami. Chosen films came from seven different countries and were made by 8 to 13-year-olds.

Secondary school
Pirates and skeletons but also the adaptation problems of an immigrant youth and using media to influence people were some of the topics of the screenings directed at young people. Films chosen were made by young people between the ages 13 and 17 from nine different countries, Kenya and India being the farthest.

Videotivoli 1
The theme Tales and fiction gave us a journey around the world telling, for example, a Western-style story of friendship and the dreams of a Japanese monk. These movies made by 6- to 18-year-olds came from seven different countries.

Videotivoli 2
I wanna tell; societal and social themes included television criticism, the Africans’ views of themselves and the problems of being a political refugee. These films from 11 different countries took the viewer to a journey around the world from Argentina to Serbia and through Kenya and Burkina Faso, continuing to Thailand and finally reaching Australia. Films were made by young people from age 11 to 17.

Videotivoli 3
Made in Finland consisted of films by 10- to 18-year-olds Finns from Rovaniemi, Pori, Inari and Pirkanmaa region. Some of the themes dealt with discrimination, the feeling of being different, and avoiding boredom by forming a band.

Videotivoli 4
In the animation world old people reminisced the time when they went to school, ships got lost in Bermuda and fox was again the most cunning of them all. These animations were made by 6- to 17-year-olds from nine different countries.

Videotivoli 5
From Samiland to Africa screening films were made by adults the target audience being children and young people. Mighty river took us to the north in a fictive story. Hundred words for snow was a Swedish documentary on Sami people. Binta and the great idea took us to Senegal. The film received an Oscar nomination in the short film category.

Videotivoli 6
The screening directed at the smallest children consisted of cutout animations made in different nurseries and schools.
A mysterious pox struck the residents of Santa’s Mountain and a magic brush could bring things to life.

LISTEN TO ME –SEMINAR
The seminar Listen to me - young people got something to say was held at at the University of Tampere’s Väinö Linna auditorium on March 8th and 9th 2007. The free seminar was aimed at teachers, media educators and anyone interested in social matters. In two days some 130 people discussed citizen participation, how to make the world a better place, the differences one can make through his or her own actions and societal matters in media educations point of view.

The seminar featured the Italian film director Angelo Loy who told about his work in Kenya and the birth of African spelling book series.

The coordinator of the Magic project, Chris Schuepp spoke about Unicef’s media action.

In his projects the American director-producer Austin Haerbele dealt with the hardships of young people’s lives, and the conflicts between religions and cultures.

Samuel Raunio from the University of Jyväskylä spoke about his research on how the Western youth sees the developing countries and how media moulds their views. Jean Bitar told about his documentary of immigrant children in Finland.  In the film children interviewed each other.

The seminar was organized by Pirkanmaa Film Centre’s Videotivoli in cooperation with the University of Tampere and Opeko (National Centre for Professional Development in Education).

The Sami in Tampere
The Sami were presented also in Videotivoli. Almost every screening showed films made by children and young people from the north.

Imaginative journey to Samiland
In the workshops an imaginative journey was made through visual arts, soundscape, play and story to north and Samiland. There one could see different animals, learn Sami language, make your own instrument of the pieces of reindeer’s horns and let the yoik lead.

Instructors were given teaching material package.

Petra Biret Magga and Anna Näkkäläjärvi guided the tour.

Sami culture meets Finnish culture in Tampere

During the festival week some Sami writers visited schools and libraries in Tampere. Present were Rauna Paadat-Leivo, Siiri Magga-Miettunen, Inger-Mari Aikio-Arianaick and Inghilda Tapio amongst others. The writers introduced other Sami writers and told myths, truths and sagas about Sami people.

HAVING SOUL -  PUPPETS AS ANIMATION STARS

The 50th anniversary exhibition of the Estonian animation studio Nukufilm

The Estonian animation as we know it today was created in 1957 by Nukufilm. Nukufilm was one of the first stop-motion studios in Eastern Europe. The father of Estonian animation, Elbert Tuganov was born in Azerbaijan in 1920. He directed his first animation, Little Peter’s dream (Peetrikese unenägu) in 1957-1958. The fall of the Soviet Union shaked many of the society’s structures but didn’t manage to run down Nukufilm. In 1993 Nukufilm became a private company with the help of animators and producers.

By the year 2007 Nukufilm has been making animations for 50 years. To celebrate these years the studio compiled a circulating exhibition called Having soul together with the Estonian Institute. The exhibition walked through the studio’s history and familiarised the stop-motion animation technique. The numerous photographs and characters presented gave the visitor a possibility to peak behind the scene of animated film. It showed how the idea leads the film, where and how the puppets have been made, what it is like to work with puppet stars and how the characters have been brought to life.

INTRODUCTION OF THE LECTURERS

Media educator and the coordinator of Unicef’s Magic project Chris Schuepp feels that young people need to get their voice heard in the media. He hopes that young people would become more active as makers of media and as media’s critical consumers. Schuepp, who has also worked as a journalist, wants to guide young people into the world of media to make them see the ways media affects. Schuepp has travelled the world sharing information on media education. He has also been involved in several different projects where young people have made their own documentary films.

Unicef’s Magic project has been an important help in young people’s own media projects and has gathered together many people from the media sector. In Finland the Magic project has organised, for example, Humour helps sketch competition, and together with Nelonen tv-channel Help your child understand what is real and what is not on television campaign. In the project One Minutes Jr. young people between ages 12 and 20 have been given a chance to tell about themselves and their experiences through workshops and competitions. According to Schuepp one of the most important tasks of media education is to protect children from

According to Schuepp one important mission of media education is to protect children from media’s injurious effects. Schuepp wants to remind of the parents’ responsibility in developing children’s and young people’s media literacy, but especially the young must learn the ways media works by acting themselves.

Antti Pelttari had been planning HUMAK University of Applied Sciences' curriculum of media education and taught it for three years to community educators in Lohja, Nurmijärvi and Helsinki. Currently Pelttari works as a freelance journalist.

According to Pelttari the mission of media education isn't to focus on protecting children from the media but to help them understand how media works and how it affects on people's thoughts. Pelttari is worried that children living in different parts of Finland are in unequal situations when it comes to media education. He feels this shortcoming must be intervened, for in the future media and for example making your own movies will become more and more common.

Pelttari thinks different media workshops should be included in teaching methods, for by using the new technology something concrete would be left of children's and young people's thoughts. This would also give diverse choices to the commercial and one-sided media. This would be important for the image today's media gives of people is extremely one-sided, generalizing and categorising. Pelttari mentions youth centers as one new possibility to develop media education.

Samuel Raunio works as an assistant at the University of Jyväskylä. In his research Young people, media and developing countries Raunio tries to find out how young people get information on the developing countries and how media affects on their knowledge and attitudes.

Raunio also wants to discuss the ways, which could be used to increase young people’s interest in developing countries. One question he wants to put forward is how media activates young people into discussion and why media is wanted to do so.

The goal of his research is to shed light on young people’s media behaviour and because he is interested in developing countries themes, he wants to find out if there are new ways of passing on information on the developing countries in such manners that the needs and hopes of the young users of media would be fulfilled, which would make them interested in news about developing countries. Raunio hopes that young people would be more active in discussions on developing countries.

American producer and director Austin Haerbele turns to cinema when he co-produces Emanuele Crialese's first film “Once We Were Strangers”. Since then he works in production, direction and editing of documentaries. Since 2001 he collaborates with AMREF (African Medical & Research Foundation) doing communication research with the aim of finding new and original ways of describing Africa using means of mass communication. In this context he was also one of the promoters of a project of rehabilitation and audiovisual formation that in 2003 produced “TV SLUM”, a documentary film shot entirely by a group of street kids in Nairobi (Kenya). Currently he is coordinating the making of The African Spelling Book for AMREF, in Nairobi; a series of themed episodes to describe the problems of the African metropolis through the eyes of a group of street kids.

Jean Bitar was born in Lebanon and lived there until he turned 18. He has lived in Finland since 1979 and nowadays calls himself a Finn. In 2006 he was rewarded with Vantaa award, prize given annually to a person or a group who have substantially contributed to the city’s cultural life. Bitar has studied at Moscow Film Institute and directed 22 documentaries for Finland’s national broadcasting company YLE.

Vantaa-based Bitar has filmed the documentary “Action in Hakunila” (Säpinää Hakunilassa), which tells about the life of immigrant children from children’s point of view.  Hakunila suburb is a home to immigrants from Europe, Asia, Africa and even South America. The idea is that children interview each other, which makes the documentary an image of the children involved.

The photographer Helen Ward is a lens based media artist living and working in rural County Durham. She uses photography (traditional and digital), digital video, and image manipulation as her medium along with use of the spoken and written word. She has experience both as a practising artist and as a participatory artist working with community groups, schools, youth groups etc. Since April 2001 she has been a member of Jack Drum Arts based in the Wear Valley, which has allowed her to explore her own work particularly within the context of film in theatre.

Jane Crawford is an actress, artist, writer, video and drama workshop facilitator, who also does mask design for school children. Under the banner of Daisy ARTS, she works all around the North in schools, colleges, community centres and agencies, working with various age groups and abilities. She is founder of WASH Youth Theatre, based in the North East, which has Investing in Children status.