Animated Film Will Be Fighting for the First Time for the Golden Slipper for Best Film for Children
The main children's film competition is increasing the total number of films this year, and for the first time in history, it will include feature animated films. Stories from all over the world await not only child audiences, but also all lovers of quality cinematography.
They can travel audiovisually through European countries and as far as South Korea and China. Real heroes will be joined by animated ones, and as the title of one of the films suggests, they are all united by an extraordinary courage based on the strength of family and friendly bonds. Just as superheroes save the world, they also fight for what is most important to them in childhood: a circus animal, a teacher, a friend's mother, or a nice classmate.
Three of the ten competition films present feature animated films for the first time, and one of them will open the seven-day festival at the 61st Zlín Film Festival. The exceptional Czech work of directors Denisa Grimmová and Jan Bubeníček Even Mice Belong in Heaven was based on the book of the same name by Iva Procházková, a leading Czech author of books for children and young people. Coincidentally, the film adaptation of her book Scent of Oranges was recently part of the main competition in Zlín.
The screening of a film with the mysterious title Wolfwalkers will certainly be a unique experience for two reasons. This animated film comes from the workshop of Northern Irish director Tom Moore, whose previous films The Secrets of Kells and Song of the Sea are treasures of world animation. The second reason is the opportunity to see this film on the big screen, because the film Wolfwalkers has not gone through usual cinema distribution and was only part of the Apple TV + streaming service. A pleasant surprise is the Italian adventure road-movie Trash, which taps into the ecological movment and introduces chilcren to the idea of environmental responsibility in a fun way.
The same message is expressed by a new film by director Petr Oukropec, Martin and the Magical Forest. The director of the award-winning films The Blue Tiger and In Your Dreams! is one of the few contributing to the renewal of the tradition of Czech children's film. The holiday story of a children's camp and mysterious forest creatures will be another Czech representative in the fight for the Golden Slipper for the best film for children.
Films in the International Film Competition for Children Under 11 section:
Kids Are Fine (KOR, 2021, Ji Won Lee)
Only Time for Loving (CHN, 2020, Liang Ming)
Even Mice Belong to Heaven (CZE/FRA/BEL/SVK, 2021, Jan Bubeníček, Denisa Grimmová)
Martin and the Magical Forest (CZE/SVK/GER, 2021, Petr Oukropec)
Dragon Girl (NOR/NLD/CZE, 2020, Katarina Launing)
Sisters: The Summer We Found Our Superpowers (NOR, 2020, Arild Østin Ommundsen, Silje Salomonsen)
Trash (ITA, 2020, Luca Della Grotta, Francesco Dafano)
Spaceboy (BEL, 2020, Olivier Pairoux)
Wolfwalkers (IRL/USA, 2020, Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart)
Poly (FRA, 2020, Nicolas Vanier)