This year, audiences across the country will have the opportunity to enjoy the following for free online: 23^ο Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Youth. The festival, as well as the 20th anniversary^η Camera Zizanio, will take place from November 28 through December 5, 2020, through the platform online.olympiafestival.gr.

The Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Youth was founded in 1997 by director Dimitris Spyrou. It takes place every year during the first week of December in Pyrgos, the capital of the prefecture of Elis in the region of Western Greece.

For its competition program (which includes fiction films, animation, and documentaries, both short and feature-length), it selects films aimed at children and young people that were produced recently and may come from any country in the world.

The Olympia Festival is the only one of its kind in Greece and ranks among the top festivals for children and young people in Europe and internationally, where it has gained significant prominence and recognition, thanks to its artistic choices, educational focus, organizational excellence, warm hospitality, and the active participation of thousands of children and young people.

OFestival Activities:

23^ο Olympia Festival

Movies

In the competition program on the 23rd^no The following films will be screened at the festival 90 movies professional films, feature-length and short films, fiction, animation, and documentaries, originating from 47 countries.

The films focus on childhood and adolescence and are guided by the principles established by UNICEF, UNESCO, and other international organizations regarding children’s and youth cinema; aim to foster critical and creative thinking among children and young people, and highlight the importance of respecting universal values and fundamental human rights for a world of peace, freedom, democracy, social progress, and justice. It goes without saying that films promoting war, violence, racism, sexism, etc., are excluded.

Awards

In the Fiction & Animation Sections, awards are presented by the International Jury, the International Youth Jury, and the Greek Children’s Jury. In the Documentary Section (KIDS & DOCS), awards are presented by the International Jury and the Children’s Jury.

Special awards are presented by the European Children's Film Association (ECFA) (In the feature, short, and documentary categories, the films that do not win an award are automatically included in the list for the ECFA’s annual European awards), the Hellenic Parliament (“Human Values” Award), the Delegation of the European Commission to Greece (“#ThisIsEU – European Values”), the Panhellenic Union of Film Critics (PEKK) and the Federation of Greek Film Clubs (OKLE).

Spotlights

Four special programs, featuring approximately 60 feature-length, medium-length, and short films:

Gianni Rodari, Teaching the Grammar of Imagination. The Olympia Festival, with the support of the Italian Cultural Institute, honors the memory of the leading Italian author of the 20th century and a pioneer of the modern fairy tale, who in 1970 won the “Hans Christian Andersen” Award, which is considered the Nobel Prize of children’s literature.
Bridges. A special program designed to help refugee children and youth learn about European culture and European human values through the medium of film. To this end, the Danish Film Institute has dubbed successful Danish films for children and young people into Arabic. Dimitris Spyrou’s award-winning film “The Flea” will also be screened with Arabic subtitles.
Approaches to Childhood and Youth in Contemporary Greek Cinema. Fifteen Greek filmmakers introduce the next generation to adult audiences through sensitive short films that explore the issues that concern them.
Zoom in on European Children’s Films. The Festival’s ongoing tribute to European cinema, featuring a broad overview of recent film productions for children and young people. Films addressing themes such as the environment, family, education, immigration, the challenges of modern society, and dreams of a better future, among others.

3ο Olympia “Creative Ideas” Pitching Lab

Directors and Screenwriters They are trained in presenting ideas and screenplays for films. At the end of the workshop, present to professional producers, sharing their ideas for creating Greek films for children and young people. At the same time, professional filmmakers—both Greek and international—train them in the specifics of «cinema for children and young people,» focusing on screenplay development. The two best ideas who will be honored, will receive €3,000 in funding (Prize sponsors: ERT, €3,000, and EKK, €3,000), while SteFilm, Authorwave, and Neaniko Plano will provide free services for the production of their films. The workshop will be held entirely online. The final presentation will be in English.

Kythira in 20^η Camera Zizanio

The This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Camera Zizanio which every year, offers a rare opportunity for children from Greece and around the world to screen the films they have made either on their own or as part of the school program.

This section presents 7 short films (documentaries, fiction, and animation) created by groups of elementary and secondary school students during the film workshops of the educational program “Everyone in the Frame” of the Youth Plan, which took place from July through November 2020 under the auspices and with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Sports, in collaboration with the Olympia Festival and in partnership with local cultural and educational organizations.

Kythira will also be represented at this year’s Camera Zizanio with the film *The Abduction* (10′ – Karava Film Group).

Up-to-date information on events at the Camera Zizanio, you can find it on the website camerazizanio.net.

Other activities:

School Cinema

Every year, the Festival turns into a huge film school with hundreds of children and young people participating in the film workshops and create films. At the same time, their teachers attend seminars so they can make use of the expertise provided by the Festival to develop creative activities at school, while young artists are provided with specialized expertise on filmmaking for children. This year, for the reasons mentioned above, all School Cinema activities will take place online, and more details will be announced in the coming days.

Special mention should be made of Mythos Project, the multinational film-making workshop that has been established for 10 years now, involving children from many countries in Europe and Asia, and which has inspired similar initiatives in Wales and Austria, will take place online through international collaboration among groups of students from various countries, as well as the Zizanimation, led by instructor Kostas Katrakis, who has made history at the Olympia Festival by running the program for 15 consecutive years and training a large group of young artists.

Edition: A book by Roviros Manthouli, titled Shadows on the White Wall – Cinema and Its Structures, which includes two very interesting and useful articles on film editing.

All the films from the Olympia Festival and Camera Zizanio will be screened FREE using the platform FestivalScope/Shift72. The workshops, conferences, and other events will be broadcast using other appropriate digital tools. Updates on all activities will be posted on the festival website and his social media accounts.