Video/Audio

UNICEF Awards

UNICEF Awards Film Honors at European Festivals

"Buddyz" friends hug in the UNICEF Prize winning Buddyz on the Move.

NEW YORK, USA, 17 August 2008 – UNICEF gave out special awards at three major film and broadcast festivals this past spring.  The awards focused on films and television shows that demonstrated strong content for children about children’s rights.

Prix Jeunesse’s UNICEF Prize

Prix Jeunesse International, the world’s leading festival for quality children’s and youth TV programmes, was held from 30 May – 4 June 2008 in Munich, Germany. For the competition, 287 programmes from 123 broadcasters from 62 countries had been entered. 87 shows made it into the final round.

The UNICEF Special Prize went to Buddyz on the Move (SABC, South Africa), a non-fiction offshoot of the legendary South African drama series “Soul Buddyz.” In this episode a village of children helps a classmate afflicted with HIV get a cell phone so she can keep up with her classmates and they also help her grandmother get a financial grant.

The Jury noted that the video “embodies the UNICEF Prize not only in its presentation of children’s rights issues but also in its treatment and involvement of young people and the media process... The show treats HIV in a very responsible way, showing the difficulties of it without any stigma... The entire premise of the show rests on these young people having formed a club inspired by the Soul Buddyz show.  So the very essence of Buddyz on the Move is derived from the power that media can have on children in a positive way.“

For the festival week, more than 400 children’s TV experts from 60 countries gathered, to screen, discuss and judge the programmes.  Kirsten Schneid, Festival Coordinator, said “It’s fantastic to see so many experts from so many different backgrounds and countries assemble to enthusiastically discuss quality in children’s TV.”  The festival is a unique chance to see what’s new and innovative in children’s programming and often inspires broadcasters to try new things.

Scene from Annecy UNICEF Award winner Hugh

Annecy’s UNICEF Award

The 32nd annual Annecy International Animated Film Festival took place 9-14 June 2008, drawing over 100,000 participants to the little French town of Annecy. Over 300 journalists and 180 buyers were present to cover the event, as well as representatives from 63 countries around the globe. 1,867 films were entered into the festival and over 500 were screened.

The UNICEF award was created to commemorate and promote child rights and the Convention of the Rights of the Child through the use of animation. This year the award was given to the film Hugh by Mathieu Navarro, Sylvain Nouveau, François Pommiez and Aurore Turbe. The charming animated short uses both 3D and 2D animation to depict an old Apache telling his grandchildren a legend of child potential and ingenuity. The film reflects the notion that through ingenuity and persistence, children are able to create a better world.

It has always been UNICEF’s policy to popularize the convention of the rights of the child, specifically through film and animation in order to further its reach in the world. For this reason, it is beneficial to both the filmmakers and to UNICEF that films dealing with child rights be promoted. In addition, the field of animation has proved to be a highly useful medium for crossing cultural or language barriers. A silent animation film for example, can be understood throughout the world, without needing to be translated. Thus, the Annecy International Animated Film Festival is a crucial tool in promoting child rights on a global spectrum.

© UNICEF/UK/Alice-Bottini Hall

Oscar Forshaw-Swift, director, and Edmund Stubbs, of the film Wrecked

Showcomotion’s UNICEF UK Awards

The Showcomotion Young People’s Film Festival is the largest and longest-established kids’ film festival in the UK.  The annual festival took place 26 June – 10 July in Sheffield, England. Showcomotion attracts thousands of young and old viewers from the UK and around the world and also organizes the Showcomotion Children’s Media Conference, which attracts international children’s media professionals. UNICEF UK is in its third year partnership with Showcomotion, awarding prizes for films about youth and by youth by creating a short film competition aiming to promote child and youth rights.

The UNICEF UK Youth Filmmaker Award is given to young filmmakers under eighteen.  About 50% of the films in Showcomotion are produced by young people.  For the UNICEF Award, filmmakers are asked to create dramatic and entertaining plots while maintaining a reflection of the values that UNICEF UK promotes.  This year, the prize was shared by two films - Past-Caring by Zoe Kyriakou (14), Usman Zaman (13) and Aiden Troughton (12) and Wrecked by Oscar Forshaw Swift (17). Past-Caring was a sci-fi film depicted the lives of two time-traveling teenagers that get caught in a twilight zone one day at school.  Wrecked deals with the topic of drug abuse amongst adolescents in the UK and the dangerous repercussions drug-addicted youths face. 

The Jury comprised local young people from Cube Magazine, NSPCC Sheffield Young People’s Centre, Sheffield Young Writers’ Workshop and local schools.  Showcomotion Festival Director Kathy Loizou said, “Our youth jury members worked long and hard, viewing the 23 films in the competition, and debating and discussing who would have the honour of winning the prestigious UNICEF UK Awards.”  The festival gave children and adolescents under 18 the opportunity to express their views in a creative and inventive atmosphere to a mass audience in Great Britain.

The UNICEF UK Short Film award is given to professional filmmakers over eighteen who make films dealing with children’s rights and issues.   Simone Van Duesseldorp won for the film Doggie, with an honourable mention going to Goldfish by Joe Wein.  In Doggie, Little Dédé tries to get the attention of his parents using some dog tricks.  Goldfish tells the story of a girl who tries to reunite her fish with the ocean.

Doggie also won the UNICEF UK Audience Award, with Special Mentions to Goldfish and Past-Caring. 

For more information on the Festival and UNICEF UK's youth initiatives, go to www.unicef.org.uk/youthvoice.