One focus of FILM WITHOUT BORDERS is the festival’s annual Youth Programme. This year, students of the 9th grade of the Maxim Gorki School will be the Youth Jury for FILM WITHOUT BORDERS. They chose their winning films, which the young people will present at the festival in Bad Saarow.
In the one-week workshop organized by the filmmakers Anna Faroqhi and Haim Peretz, the participants at the Cinema Bad Saarow were watching a documentary film every day that addresses this year’s festival themed THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. The focus was on youth and role models, climate change, individual and general concepts of freedom.
“The students asked questions about historical and social contexts, argued whether an open ending could be interpreted as happy or tragic. The intensive discussions led to questions of craftsmanship, e.g., how sounds could influence the perception of a scene,” reported the two workshop leaders Anna Faroqhi and Haim Peretz.
After each screening, the films were discussed intensively. Complex issues such as the Northern Ireland conflict, globalization, climate change, children’s rights and colonialism were touched upon.
“The film festival FILM WITHOUT BORDERS makes a great contribution to bringing children and young people into the middle of our society through very practical forms of participation. Here, students are given the opportunity to help shaping discourses and to artistically put their respective topics into the picture, whereby they experience resonance and motivating self-realization,” said Rolf Lindemann, District Administrator of the Oder-Spree district.
At the end of the workshop, the students voted on which of this year’s competition films will be shown in the School Cinema Programme of FILM WITHOUT BORDERS. This task not only caused excitement, but also pride: with their decision, they are able to determine the programme for a festival.
The Youth Jury finally selected these two films: GIRL GANG (Switzerland 2022) and INTO THE ICE (Germany/Denmark 2022).
The Youth Programme of the 10th International FILM WITHOUT BORDERS Festival is funded by the District of Oder-Spree, the Alliance for Democracy Storkow and the Department of Scharmützelsee as part of the federal programme “Demokratie Leben”, the Antonius Jugend- und Kulturstiftung, Daimler Truck, the SaarowTherme as well as with funds from the Kinder in Not Foundation in Germany.
© Anna Faroqhi
© Ralf Hermersdorfer
