As technology, mass media and communications are increasingly being taught to school children of younger and younger age groups, students as young as six are learning the tools of the trade to present their thoughts and experiences to the world through film.
The Auburn International Film Festival for Children and Young Adults, established in 1998 as a community cultural development initiative, is one such unique platform available to children, youth and adults who are interested in moving images as a medium for expressing social, cultural, political, racial and economical concerns about the environments in which they live.
Last year, over 2000 students from schools in the Auburn local area, as well as the greater Western Sydney region, attended the festival and celebrated this international event.
In 2007 the festival received over 350 works and presented 88 short- and feature-length films from 41 countries simultaneously at Reading Cinemas Auburn and Vernon Theatre Sydney Olympic Park. Media literacy and digital film-making workshops also form an integral part of the event.
"The festival is a platform for children and youth to present their works alongside professional adult film-makers locally and globally. This is a significant bridge between amateur film-makers and the industry," festival director Mr Vahid Vahed says.
"When I realised my work was scheduled next to my favourite director Aabbas Kiarostami at [the festival], I was in disbelief since this was my second film that I ever produced," a young adult female film-maker from Adelaide said.
And the jury is in...
The young jury members, made up of year 5 and year 6 students from local schools in Sydney's west, commented: "We enjoyed the films very much and our favourites were more than one, but we had to choose the best film voted by all of us. Among the best were Fetch , Little Brother , Letting Go , Magic Cellars and Mathew Heath that we would like to mention." Youth jury members were aged between 18 and 20.
The category for best film made by adults for or about youth was won by The Holgate Brothers of Australia for their fiction film of six minutes, Next Try Wins .
The best film made by children 6–14 years old was won by Dax Fontana and Tiffany Fontana of the US for their experimental film Color Abstraction .
The best film made by young adults 15–22 years old was won by Sagad Shahedi of Iran for the fiction work, The Zero .
The best film made by adults for or about children was won by Derrick Lui & Lee Chee Tian (Singapore) for their fiction work, Colours .
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