Cine Sparks Highlights

In its first year as a film festival dedicated to young people, Cine Sparks evoked laughter, tears, opinions, dancing, music, and various other forms of creative expression from today’s youth.

Students travelled from as close as Brisbane State High School and Somerville House (both located in South Brisbane) and from as far as Toowoomba and Stanthorpe to participate in free film screenings and heavily-subsidised workshops.

The events on the second Family Fun Day (held last Sunday) drew all ages to the Suncorp Piazza for an all-day line-up of free film screenings and live, interactive events. Particularly popular were the screening of the 1980s classic Neverending Story and the Bollywood Dreams Dance Extravaganza. Professional Bollywood dancers in colourful Indian dress demonstrated and instructed the eager crowd in Bollywood-style dancing long after dusk.

Cine Sparks came to an end for 2005 with two of the schools who attended on the last day viewing back-to-back screenings of The Color of Milk (Norway/Sweden) and 4th Floor (Spain).

4th Floor joins Machuca and The Mighty Celt on the Festival’s Showtime Top Ten list. Congratulations also to each of the four shorts in the Cine Sparks programme, which made it in to the Merchant Solutions Top Ten: Bloody Footy, The Djarn Djarns, Lesson from Bam, and Little Witches.

The Cine Sparks Workshops programme presented by Network Ten wrapped up at the end of last week, with students creating their own mobile soapies and mobile movies in back-to-back workshops last Friday. And budding filmmakers took part in a free Video Production workshop on Sunday, where participants were equipped with skills to take them from pre-production right through to post-production.

Click here to view images from Cine Sparks events 

Cine Sparks Highlights from Week One

This year’s inaugural Cine Sparks programme has been a hit with school groups and families alike.

The candy bar at South Bank Cinemas has experienced daily surges from school students attending the 10:00am and 12:00pm screenings of films in the Cine Sparks World Cinema programme. Schools from all over Brisbane and as far afield as Toowoomba have embraced the programme of free film screenings and affordable workshops.

Highlights for the students this week included a visit from Network Ten’s Ranger Stacey from Totally Wild, who gave a talk on the insect world before introducing the Dutch film Eric in the Land of Insects. The screening’s mostly primary school audience responded enthusiastically to the film.

Likewise, secondary school students have enjoyed the films as much as their primary school counterparts, with students from one school announcing that 4th Floor brought them to tears, so touching was this film from Spain.

Students also had the unique privilege of talking to the filmmakers of Karamuk (Sülbiye V. Günar), The Mighty Celt (Pearse Elliott), Lesson from Bam (Alireza Ghanie), Bloody Footy (Dean Chircop), and The Djarn Djarns (Wayne Blair) in Q&A sessions following the screenings.

Weekday screenings of Nitaboh from Japan), Magnifico (from the Philippines) and Malabar Princess (from France) sold out this week. Two of the feature films in the Cine Sparks programme have made it on to the Showtime Top Ten list (based on audience votes): Machuca (from Chile) and The Mighty Celt (from Ireland). Currently on the Merchant Solutions Shorts Top Five list is the locally-made Little Witches.

There was also a hive of activity this week at the Cine Sparks Workshop programmes presented by Network Ten, as students brainstormed, created, reviewed, deconstructed, reconstructed, reviewed, and edited the creative works they produced in a range of cutting-edge media workshops. Erik Roberts’ Scratch Animation and Phoebe Hart’s News/Doco Point of View (in conjunction with Network Ten’s totally ten news) workshops were particular hits with the students.

Above: A scratch-animator at work

Anytime

Young people can gain further insights into the world of filmmaking by hopping online at www.cinesparks.com.au, where students can read and write reviews about the films they've seen, talk with other young people about the festival and all things film in the online forums, they can watch short films online, and they can read weblogs about what it's like to work in film, television, and entertainment.

ABOUT CINE SPARKS

The Australian Film Festival for Young People.

Visit www.cinesparks.com.au

Young people will have a unique opportunity to learn visual literacy skills that will equip them for the digital age when Cine Sparks, the Australian Film Festival for Young People which opens 27 July as part of this year’s Brisbane International Film Festival presented by Vision.

Funded by Arts Queensland, Cine Sparks is a fun and engaging event for young people aged 8-18. As well as helping to teach visual literacy skills, the programme celebrates cultural diversity and offers a window into the lives of young people around the world.

Cine Sparks will screen quality Australian and international films, programmed with three age groups in mind: 8 years +, 13 years + and 15 years +. After the films, young people can participate in the Cine Sparks Workshops programme presented by Network Ten. These will be interactive, informative workshops with links to the Queensland curriculum for film, television and new media studies; LOTE studies (including French, German, Japanese and Spanish); drama; religious, cultural and social studies; and visual arts.

A dedicated website will extend the cinematic experience far beyond the conventional, providing opportunities for young people to interact, create, learn and play online. Keep clicking on www.cinesparks.com.au for exciting developments!

Cine Sparks is modelled on international film festivals for young people, such as Berlin’s Kinderfilmfest, the Chicago International Children's Film Festival and Toronto’s Sprockets Festival, but is unique in Australia. It represents a substantial expansion of the Australian Children's Film Festival, which presented a small selection of international films for young audiences in 2003 and 2004.

Cine Sparks takes place at South Bank and includes sessions during and after school hours on weekdays, as well as on weekends. Entry to films is free during school hours: a small fee applies to workshop entry. The programme includes family events in addition to the educational component.

For more information about Cine Sparks contact Sally Brown at sbrown@biff.com.au or phone
(07) 3007 3019.