25/09/2003

Next Monday sees the start of the Buster Copenhagen's International Children's Film Festival. 8 films will be competing for the Buster Grand Prix (€7,000) which will be awarded on October 5, the final day of the event. The competition opens with the award winning film Spirited Away by the Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki, and it will be competing against Elina (Sweden) by Klaus Härö, Free (France) by Jean-Pierre Sainé, The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Bear (Denmark) by Jannik Hastrup, and other films from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Israel and Senegal.
The three jury members are the Canadian Jo-Anne Blouin, the director of the Montreal International Children Film Festival, Justin Johnson from Britain, programmer of Children’s films at the British Film Institute and the Danish director Hans Fabian Wullenweber (Catch That Girl). They will also be awarding a €2,000 prize for the Best Short Film for children.
Other key highlights of this year’s Buster festival include a new annual event for European children and youth film professionals, and six seminars on different topics concerning children: Aesthetics in children and youth films, The use of film in education, Scene by Scene, Marketing and alternative distribution of children’s films and New media.