News
EMOTION PICTURES travel to...Drama!
The 31st Greek Short Film Festival - 14th International Short Film Festival in Drama will hold special special screening of the awarded films by the 2nd International Festival "Emotion Pictures - Documentary and Disability".
The list of films is the following:
- "Breadmakers" Yasmin Fedda, Scotland (11')
- "The Italian doctor" Esben Hansen, Denmark (28')
- "My Dream" Wang Hong Hai, China (50')
- "Severing the Soul" Barbara Klutinis, USA (18')
- "Please listen to me" Marianna Économou, Greece (52')
The screenings will take place in the Municipal Observatory, on Tuesday, 16th September 2008, 17:30 - 19:30.
For more information:
http://www.dramafilmfestival.gr/31st/en/amea.html
"EMOTION PICTURES - Documentary and Disability"
The 2nd International Festival "EMOTION PICTURES - Documentary and Disability" was held in the New Benaki Museum (138 Piraios Str.) from 21 to 23 June 2008.
EMOTION PICTURES is organized annually by the Hellenic Ministry of Press as the result of an initiative by Minister of State and Government Spokesperson Theodoros Rousopoulos in collaboration with the Greek Film Centre. It aims to increase public awareness and promote the inclusion of disabled people into society, while further encouraging the media and filmmakers, disabled or not, to take an active interest in this area and reach the widest public possible.
The 1st EMOTION PICTURES, which took place last summer, was a huge success as regards the number of people who attended (more than 3,000) and the media coverage. However, we also worked hard to make this festival much more than a three-day event. We organized parallel screenings and events throughout this year after contacting more than 800 Municipalities in Greece and abroad, universities and Greek organisations.
This year's screening schedule was even more spectacular, as among the 38 films that will be shown, there were entries from countries such as Afghanistan, Vietnam, the Pacific Islands, Kenya and Japan. And because these films represent a variety of cultures, we saw the different ways that people deal with disability in various parts of the world. Some films refer to social issues usually not associated with disability, which are yet indissolubly linked to it, such as war and the destruction of the environment. The global movement for the rights of persons with disability is fighting for these issues and the festival could not but be an active participant in this effort by incorporating retrospectives entitled Disability - War - Environment in the screening program. After the screenings there was a discussion with the artists and personalities from Tahiti, England and Afghanistan who have struggled to bring to prominence issues that are systematically ignored.
The films screened included Dennis O'Rourke's award-winning documentary Half Life that shows the impact of illegal nuclear testing on the health of the inhabitants of the Marshall islands, who were used as guinea-pigs. The film won the Jury Prize (Best Film) and the Peace Film Prize at the Berlin Film Festival.
This year's surprise was twelve-year-old Kishan Shrikanth. The youngest film director in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records, he also stars in his award-winning film, The Care of Footpath, which has made the struggle for the rights of children to education in India more widely known.
Children were the focal point of the festival. As of this year EMOTION PICTURES begun a cooperation with the "Chinh India Forum". Together they organized an animation workshop with directors Meenakshi and Vinay Rai (27 national and international awards), who have developed a technique to release the creativity of children with disability using animation. The Hellenic National Commission for UNESCO and the J. F. Costopoulos Foundation have played a decisive role in this effort. The film that was made during this workshop in which thirty children from Greece participated, in cooperation with the Society for the Protection of Spastics, was screened at the closing ceremony of this year's festival on June 23rd and at all schools under the auspices of UNESCO.
During the festival's opening ceremony (June 21st) the film My dream was presented, featuring the stunning artists with disability who are members of the China Disabled People's Performing Art Troupe and who have been designated as "UNESCO Artist for Peace".
In the two years of its existence the festival has accepted more than 500 participations. This year's program, which included films about the inexhaustible power of life, also embraces issues such as disability and sexuality, homosexuality and motherhood.
The artistic director
Maria Hatzimichali-Papaliou
And the journey goes on!
The documentary film "God on the Horizon" travelled once more overseas, this time at Danville International Children's Film Festival, where it was screened on the 18th of May.
This film was made by students of the Special School of Ilion (Athens, Greece) within the framework of the first EMOTION PICTURES festival's workshop, in collaboration with the filmmaker Lena Voudouri. "God on the Horizon" was also screened in March at the 18th Cairo International Film Festival for Children and in February at the San Francisco International Children's Film Festival.
The well-known actor Daniel Day Lewis once more in Athens
On Thursday 14 February the famous actor Daniel Day Lewis will be present at the Athens premiere of his new film "There will be blood" at the venue "Ianos". The event's revenues will be offered to the Greek Cerebral Palsy Society. Daniel Day Lewis has attended several events for children with disabilities in Greece in the past. EMOTION PICTURES will be there to thank him in person for the letter he addressed to the festival last year, congratulating the initiative and wishing us luck.
As Daniel Day Lewis underlines:
"All of us shall one day coexist freely within society without discrimination".
"I send my warmest greetings to all those participating in this festival and my apologies not being there in person.
Many people with disabilities within any society are deprived of those means of self expression that are enjoyed unquestioningly by the rest of us; at the very least they are denied the forum of which that expression may be seen and may be heard. Congratulations to all of you involved in this; "The First Athens International Documentary Festival on Disability" for helping to move us toward the still distant hope that all of us shall one day coexist freely within society without discrimination and irrespective of those obstacles that confront some and not others.
With love,
Daniel Day Lewis"