Tag: animation

Opening Night: The Cat’s Meow (Ages 6+ Short Film Program)

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27
7PM Film Program
5:30PM Happy Hour

SATURDAY, MARCH 7 – 11AM

Ages 6–8, and cat lovers of all ages

** Presented in partnership with NEKO Cat Cafe **

This feline-focused (and allergy-free!) animation program is filled with cuddly cats and their adorable antics. Kitties truly make the world go ‘round in this celebration of glorious stop-motion, painted, hand-drawn and CG animation from ten cat-loving countries.

67 min.

Content advisory: “The Quintet of the Sunset,” a stop-motion film made with great humor and skill, tackles the subject of mortality in a tenderhearted way.

** Filmmaker María Teresa Salcedo Montero in attendance (Wild Lea)! **

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Sun Circle: Films from Japan 思い出の日々 (All Ages Short Film Program)

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Saturday, February 29 – 3:30pm

All ages

These eight animated films, filled with Japanese traditional colors, tell stories of summer days filled with noisy cicada songs, lucky charms, bento boxes and twins. Curated by CFFS intern Marina Amagai.

50 min.

蝉の五月蠅い夏、縁起物、キャラ弁、禅の心や双子ちゃん等様々な日本を感じられる７つのフィルムを集めたプログラムです。
上映時間：50分
日本に興味がある全ての人々におススメです。
**全ての映画は英語字幕付きもしくは、セリフなしでお楽しみいただけます。

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Lift-off (Ages 9+ Short Film Program)

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Saturday, March 7 – 11:30am
On-Site at Northwest Film Forum
(1515 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122)

Sunday, March 8 – 1:00pm
Off-Site at Rainier Arts Center
(3515 S Alaska St., Seattle, WA 98118)

NOTE: For the March 8th screening of Lift-Off, audiences can purchase tickets for the SCREENING *ONLY*, or join us at 11:30am for BOTH THE BREAKFAST SMORGASBOARD AND SCREENING.

Ages 9+

These stories of adventure will take you to outer space and back, with films showing what it is like to be out on your own, in a world of wild adventure and imagination, making decisions and, ultimately, finding your way back home again.

78 min.

** On Sunday, March 8, join Children’s Film Festival Seattle off-site at Rainier Arts Center (3515 S. Alaska St.) for a full day of colorful Closing Day festivities! **

Celebrating the festival’s globally-minded programs in one of Seattle’s most diverse neighborhoods, the morning will kick off with your choice of “Om Nom Nom” or “Lift-off” – two programs that combine breakfast and a film screening – and then continue throughout the day with films for all ages, intergenerational hands-on workshops, and an awards ceremony!

Finally, the entire festival closes out with a live performance by youth from the School of Spectrum Dance Theater, who will choreograph a routine exclusively in response to the evening’s feature film, Moving Stories! Moving Stories follows youth from around the world to showcase the transformative power and universal language of dance.


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Friendly Rhythms of the Planet w/ Visiting Filmmaker Tatiana Skorlupkina

* Offered twice, for different age ranges.

January 26
1:30-4:30pm
Ages 8-11

In this interactive workshop, students will make an animated short film depicting the rhythms of children and the natural world. Students will learn about rhythms found in the filmmaking process through animating frame by frame in stop motion. They will also get hands-on crafting and coloring figures for the animation. Tatiana Skorlupkina is a musician, artist, composer, director, animator, and screenwriter. Her innovative cinematic works lead viewers into a world come alive, where genres are transformed and interwoven; here, images are music, music is images, and literary works both ‘vibrate and narrate’. Her work has been screened by and won awards at numerous film festivals around the world.

Register here:

 

January 27
1:30-4:30pm
Ages 11-14

This second workshop date is an opportunity for students that are a little older to enjoy the same workshop with Tatiana with a higher level of complexity.

Register here:

 

 

Other CFFS 2019 Workshops:

https://childrensfilmfestivalseattle.org/lets-all-go-to-the-lobby-interactive-filmmaking-installation/

https://childrensfilmfestivalseattle.org/360-filmmaking-behind-the-scenes-of-the-festival/

Borders, Boundaries and Home (Shorts Program)

Saturday, January 26 – 5:30pm
Wednesday, January 30 – 3:30pm

Ages 13+

** Co-presented with CAIR-WA! Filmmaker (and Executive Director) Vivian Hua (Searching Skies) in attendance! **

All children have the right to a home, but for the young people in some of these narrative and documentary films, political and religious issues threaten their futures. The films are made by filmmakers in response to worldwide migration issues, and also include a documentary from a dream city, where origins and cultural differences do not matter to a tight-knit group of boys.

77 min.

Content advisory: This program explores tough issues, and stories that do not always have happy or clear endings. There is one mild swear word in Searching Skies, spoken in frustration by an uncle to his nephew who is showing a lack of compassion.

 

Short Films in this Program:

Malá

(Diana Cam Van Nguyen, Czech Republic, animation, 2017, 10 min, in Vietnamese & Czech with English subtitles) West Coast premiere!

A Vietnamese girl grows up in a European town. As she gets used to what it means to be strange and at home at the same time, her family inevitably heads towards a fatal decision. Who will leave and who will stay?

Trailer >

199 Little Heroes: Miral from Palestine

 

(Sigrid Klausmann-Sittler, Germany, live action, 2018, 14 min, Arabic with English subtitles) North American premiere!

Miral is an exuberant girl who has amazing athletic ability. Her life is beautiful and full, in spite of the walls that surround her.

Caracol Cruzando

 
 

(Pamela Chavez, US, animation, 2018, 16 min, Spanish with English subtitles) Seattle premiere!

A Costa Rican girl decides if she will bring her pet turtle across the US border.

Trailer >

 

Searching Skies

 

(Vivian Hua, US, live action, 2017, 9 min, English & Arabic)

When a Syrian refugee family is invited to a Christian family’s Christmas dinner, they are caught between opposing viewpoints for and against them, until an unexpected event suddenly occurs.

Harbourboyz

(Mirjam Marks, The Netherlands, live action, 2018, 15 min, Dutch with English subtitles) Seattle premiere!

For five 11-year-old friends, each with different origins (Turkish, Surinamese, Syrian, Chinese and Dutch), living in a working-class Dutch district, cultural and religious differences do not matter.

Trailer >

Bachir in Wonderland

 
 

(Els Duran & Evelien Vehof, The Netherlands, 2018, 15 min, Arabic & Spanish with English subtitles)

Bachir dreams of swimming in the sea, but he lives in a refugee camps in the middle of a desert. Despite having no passport, he is offered the chance of a lifetime: to go to a summer camp in Spain.

 

 

Don’t want to miss a single thing? Can’t blame you! Consider a Festival Pass —

Opening Night: Castle in the Sky (CFFS 2018)

Thursday, Jan 25, 2018 @ 7 PM

(Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, animation, 1986, 124 min, in English)
For ages 6+

Gala Opening Night, sponsored by The Boeing Company and co-presented with Seattle International Film Festival, at the Egyptian Theatre

Doors open at 6:30pm for red carpet photos! Come as your favorite character from a Miyazaki film, there will be a costume contest with special prizes!

From the legendary Studio Ghibli and director Hayao Miyazaki comes a rollicking adventure about a young girl with a mysterious crystal pendant who falls out of the sky and into the arms and life of young Pazu. Together they search for a floating island, the site of a long-dead civilization promising enormous wealth and power to those who can unlock its secrets. But greedy pirates, spies, and the army are also all in hot pursuit! As one of Studio Ghibli’s earliest films, and the first to be released officially under the studio’s banner, “Castle in the Sky” quickly established the studio’s reputation for strong heroines, unforgettable storytelling and beautiful artwork. The English-dubbed cast includes the vocal talents of Anna Paquin, James Van Der Beek, Cloris Leachman, Mark Hamill, Mandy Patinkin, Jim Cummings and more.

Please note that this special event is being held at the Egyptian Theater, 805 E. Pine Street

 

 

WATCH THE TRAILER:

Journeys, Genders and Identity (Shorts Program)

Saturday, January 26 – 11:30am

Ages 11+

This program celebrates beautiful and complex stories of identity and diversity — just like you, the people you will meet in this program are one of kind, finding their way towards their authentic selves, rejecting stereotypes and reaching out to others who respect and affirm their journeys.

68 min.

* Co-presented with Three Dollar Bill Cinema! *

Content advisory: Animated characters in “Flash Flood” do not wear clothes, but their bodies do not signal any gender characteristics. In Little Heroes two Israeli boys discuss terrorism, in a simplistic way, through the lens of fear that they have learned. In Cat Days a doctor smokes. In Tough there is imagery of a gun while a daughter hears her mother’s memory of serving in an army.

 

 

Short Films in this Program:

People

 
 

(Lucas Hespenheide, US, 2017, animation, 1 min, English) Seattle premiere!

An introspective look at the differences between people, and learning to love who you are.

Aidan and Albert Sykes

 
 

(Richard O’Connor, US, 2017, animation, 3 min, English)

9-year-old Aidan Sykes, of Jackson, Mississippi, asks his father, Albert, a few important questions.

Cat Days

 
 

(John Frickey, Japan & Germany, animation, 2018, 11 min, Japanese with English subtitles) Seattle premiere!

What happens when you are told you are cat, but you know you are really a boy?

Flash Flood

 
 

(Ali MacKay, Canada & US, animation, 2107, 6 min, English)

Deep within an animated dream, three transgender people confront a cataclysmic flood.

Trailer >

199 Little Heroes: Newo from Israel

 
 

(Sigrid Klausmann-Sittler, Germany, live action documentary, 2018, 15 min, Hebrew with English subtitles) North American premiere!

A boy in Israel loves ballet, and finds friends and family who support him.

The Importance of Finding the Other

 

(Marcy Lyn Frutchey, US, live action, 2017, 9 min, English) Seattle premiere!

A young, biracial girl sets out to discover what it means to be an “other.”

Trailer >

Tough

 
 

(Jennifer Zhang, UK, animation, 2016, 5 min, in Mandarin and English, with English subtitles)

A British-born daughter has grown mature enough to be more curious about her mother’s experiences in China, and understand how differently she grew up.

Trailer >

The Big Picture

 
 

(Pooja Das Sarka, India, live action, 2017, 20 min, English and Hindi with English subtitles) Seattle premiere!

A teenager’s love of Bollywood musicals leads him to question why people believe there are certain things men and women should and shouldn’t do.

Trailer >

 

 

Don’t want to miss a single thing? Can’t blame you! Consider a Festival Pass —

Ordinary to Extraordinary (Shorts Program)

Saturday, February 2 – 1:30pm

Ages 11+

These evocative animated and live-action films for older kids show how easy it is to tear the fabric between what is real and what could be real, if we only imagined it. See how an artist brings her paintings to life, how a big bad wolf is not so bad, how a girl can turn into a horse, how all things in nature are truly connected, how time can stand still when you realize a grandmother and mother’s love, and how to step inside the mind of another person to change it.

79 min.

Content advisory: Horse’s Stone is about a girl with a terminal illness, with an ending that is magical. Beyond Horizons can be a bit spooky, like an episode of the old Twilight Zone TV series. Auuuna which has overtones of a folk tale, might seem a bit scary to the most sensitive viewers. Tweet-Tweet is a somewhat solemn but magical film about the long life of the filmmaker’s grandmother.

** Filmmaker Tatiana Skorlupkina (The Dachshund in the Picture Frame) in attendance! *

 

 

Short Films in this Program:

Auuuna

 
 

(Lina Šuková, Slovakia, animation, 2018, 8 min, in English)

In a new take on Red Riding Hood a girl makes peace with the power and mystery of nature, and finds the big bad wolf is not bad at all.

The Dachshund in a Picture Frame

 
 

(Tatiana Skorlupkina, Russia, animation & live action, 2018, 9 min, nonverbal) West Coast premiere!

A painter has a special talent to bring her paintings to life. But what she does for love cannot also be done for money.

Trailer >

Beware of the Sad Man

 
 

(Benny Goldman, Australia, animation, 4 min, nonverbal)

A happy-go-lucky guy tries to cheer someone up, until he realizes that words won’t make the difference that is needed.

Trailer >

Horse’s Stone

 
 

(Cynthia Fernández Trejo, Mexico, live action, 2017, 20 min, Spanish with English subtitles)

Matilde, who is very sick, searches for the stone that allows her fulfill her dream of becoming a horse.

The Little Fish and the Crocodile

 
 

(Stefanie Plattner, Germany & Republic of Congo, live action, 2018, 15 min, Lingala with English subtitles) US premiere!

A fable from the rainforest in the Odzala National Park in the Republic of Congo, told by the children of the Sanza Mobimba Kindergarten.

Beyond Horizons

 
 

(Stefan Wink, UK, live action, 2018, 13 min, English) Seattle premiere!

Alex feels she’s too old to spend time with her mom, so she dashes off on her own to explore an intriguing shop. There, she discovers a miniature world with a strange secret, and also, how much she loves her mom.

Trailer >

Tweet-Tweet

 
 

(Zhanna Bekmambetova, Russia, animation, 2018, 11 min, nonverbal) Washington State premiere!

This is a fable about the power of a grandmother’s spirit and the journey of her life, as seen by a bird who represents her spirit.

Trailer >

 

 

Don’t want to miss a single thing? Can’t blame you! Consider a Festival Pass —