Children's Film Festival

For those of us with kiddos in the Greater Seattle Area and would like to bolster an already growing interest in the world of film; on your mark, get set, GO!

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Copyright © 2009 - Journal Newspapers

Later this month, movie-loving kids and their parents have a festival that’s just for them, as Children’s Film Festival Seattle returns for its fourth annual extravaganza.

Hosted by the Northwest Film Forum at their fortified compound on Capitol Hill, the festival will run from Jan. 23 to Feb. 1 and feature over 80 films from 25 countries.

“It’s an international collection of the best of children’s films worldwide,” said Elizabeth Shepard, the festival’s director.

The films that are chosen for the festival are aimed at children, but the festival organizers are very aware that parents will be in the theater too. Shepard said that children’s movies can occasionally be “a painful experience” for parents, and that they have kept that in mind when selecting their films.

“One of our big points here is that we want to show films that are appealing to the entire family, that will let children and their parents together take a little trip around the world,” Shepard said.

One of the films screening at this year’s festival is Speedy Delivery, a documentary by filmmaker Paul Germain. The hour-long film takes a look at the life of David Newell, the actor who portrayed Mr. McFeely on the long-running children’s show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

Germain and Newell met by happenstance at a mall in Pittsburgh, while Germain was a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University. The two got to talking, and the filmmaker immediately felt a rapport.

“I was really taken aback by how genuine he was,” Germain said. “The character he played on television is almost no different from the person he is in life ... I had so many questions about why he’d chosen to live his life in this way, and I wanted to explore that in a documentary.”

The film was a labor of love for Germain and his collaborators. The project took four years to produce, but only cost around $4,000 because he was able to convince so many people to put in work for free — and of course, he put in a great deal of work himself.

There is a silliness to Speedy Delivery that kids can enjoy, according to Germain, but he thinks that parents relate to the film too, through a kind of nostalgia for their own childhoods. After all, many of them grew up with Mr. Rogers and Mr. McFeely.

Germain also called his film “truly a feel-good movie” and hoped that it would be a desirable alternative to some of the other sorts of documentaries that get released.

“There are a lot of documentary films that are about what’s wrong with the world,” Germain said. “Speedy Delivery is a film about something that’s really right. It’s this old fashioned philosophy of respect ... I really did want to make a film that shows these people who are out there just to do good.”

In addition to the movies, there will also be three kids’ filmmaking workshops beginning in early January. One of the workshops is for kids to make next year’s festival trailer, another is to make a documentary about their favorite stuffed animal, and the final workshop’s title speaks for itself: Lego Zombie Attack!: The Movie.

The recommended ages for participation in the workshops vary, but are generally in the age 7 to 12 range. Tuition for the trailer workshop is $70; the other two are $30 each.

The film festival kicks off every year with an all-you-can-eat pancake and bacon feast (with coffee for parents). It’s been so popular, according to Shepard, that they have decided to move this year’s breakfast to a nearby church and then hold an informal parade over to the movie theater.

Those interested in getting involved are encouraged to contact the festival, said Shepard. Children’s Film Festival Seattle, like the Northwest Film Forum, thrives on volunteers. The festival itself is looking for people to help out in the lobby as well as some organizational help in the days before screenings begin.

For more information about the festival, including volunteer opportunities, ticket information and a schedule of events, please visit www.childrensfilmfestivalseattle.org.