The Vancouver Sun: Festival to show 117 films from 22 countries (1982)

Source: The Vancouver Sun
Author: Peter Wilson
Published: September 16, 1982
Section: F
Document Type: Newspaper Feature Article
Source Link: View original newspaper scan (Degrassi Vault Gallery)

WHEN producer-director Babak Farmanara and his family left the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran in 1980 he decided to bring something valuable with him to his new home in Vancouver.

From 1972 to 1975, Farmanara had been a special consultant to the Tehran International Festival of Films for Children and Young Adults, an annual event founded in 1966 by the then Empress Farah Pahlavi. That festival is no longer held.

“Fifteen days after I arrived in this country I went to the [B.C.] ministry of tourism with a proposal for a film festival for children and young people,” says Farmanara, a 1968 graduate of the University of Southern California Film School. “I thought there was a gap to fill.”

Farmanara was referred to the then film promotions officer Justine Greene who introduced him to Pacific Cinematheque and the result, two years later, is the First Vancouver International Film Festival for Children and Young People.

“The worldwide response has been very, very good,” says Farmanara who is now the volunteer director-general of the event, which will run from Sept. 28 to Oct. 7 at the Robson Square Media Centre.

“Everyone who makes children’s films around the world wants to have them seen in North America and this is the only North American children’s film festival.”

The fully-accredited (by the International Federation of Film Producers) competitive festival with $5,000 in prize money will show 117 films from 22 countries. This is only the second accredited film festival in Canada after the Montreal World Film Festival.

“We had 220 films submitted and our selection committee chose 58 for the competition,” says Farmanara. In addition, there will be about 30 films showing out of competition, a 12-film homage to Walt Disney, a four-film tribute to Czech animator Karel Zeman.

Among the more interesting works being shown at the festival is the feature Muddy River from Japan, the story of two boys who become friends and then fall out because the mother of one of them is a prostitute. This movie was nominated for the 1981 Academy Award as best foreign film.

Another feature, The Young Teacher, is a film from China about a teacher’s challenge to win the confidence of her students and their parents. Among the excellent short subjects on display is the Canadian film Noel Buys A Suit, an episode from the Kids of Degrassi Street series, some of which have been shown on the CBC.

Judging films in competition will be an international jury including animator Don Bluth whose feature film The Secret of NIMH was shown in Vancouver recently and who will participate in an animation seminar during the festival.

Another animator Karel Zeman (who will run a children’s film seminar) will act as president of the jury and will be joined by the producer of Les Bons Debarras, Maria Couelle, University of B.C. child education specialist Sheila Egoff and Japanese director Mariko Miyagi.

Bluth said, in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles studio, that he felt he should participate as part of his personal campaign to keep classical film animation alive in North America.

“The state of the art, possibly because of the kind of thing you see on Saturday morning television, has become very low,” said Bluth, a one-time Disney animator. “Right now there are only 1,800 members of the Screen Cartoonists’ Guild in the U.S. and I feel that I should do whatever I can to encourage people to develop their cartooning skills so that the industry will actually have a future.”

Bluth, who recently signed a contract with his own animators that provides for residuals on their work, says he wants to do as much as he can to convince cartoonists that film animation is worthwhile.

“I’m always interested in looking at new talent and if, when I’m in Vancouver, I see someone with real skill and we have a place for him at the studio then I’ll be only too happy to ask him to join us.”

Tickets for the festival screenings are $2.50 (under 18) and $4.50 (adults) and are available from the Vancouver Ticket Centre. Bluth’s animation seminar, at Robson Square Oct. 5 will have a registration fee of $10 and Zeman’s animation seminar for children ($5) will be held Oct. 6 at the Emily Carr College of Art.

An animation workshop for Lower Mainland School Children will be given free at the media centre from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 30 to Oct. 4 by Vancouver animator Marv Newland.

Archival Note: This article, published September 16, 1982, chronicles the launch of the First Vancouver International Film Festival for Children and Young People. It is significant for including Playing With Time’s “Noel Buys A Suit” among its showcased shorts, alongside international features and legendary animators like Don Bluth.