By Derek Schlennstedt
Producers, directors and notable Belgrave celebrities received the red carpet treatment at the Lantern and Light International Children’s Festival movie awards at Belgrave Cameo on Sunday night.
The three-day festival culminated on 23 June with a red carpet rolled out to welcome the dedicated movie makers.
Over three days 56 movies were featured at the Cameo, all of them created and produced by children under 18.
Over 60 per cent of those movies were made by local students in the Yarra ranges and each night the cinema was filled with interested viewers.
“We’ve had so much interest and been packing out these cinemas,” explained organiser Rainsford Towner.
“Twelve local schools were engaged in making films.
“Yes we have international films but six per cent were created by our children, our community our region so we’re hearing about what they want to talk about and that’s been really quite amazing.”
Just what those students wanted to talk about was featured in their films and included some very serious topics such as; homelessness, loneliness and even transgender discrimination.
Best Live Action Award winners included the movie ‘Journey of Story Float’ from Taiwan, and ‘Zoe,’ a movie from Croatia. Taking out the best animation award was Cosmo Penguin of the Oper from Austria.
Locally, the best Documentary Award went to ‘Ayisha’s Las Fallas,’ and Kallista Primary School took out the Film in Schools Award for their movie ‘The Homeless.’
The O’Sullivan Ruffilli Student Jury Award went to ‘The Loneliness Orb’ – a RAPA collaborative movie – which also received the Proserpina Audience Award.
Best Performance Award went to Catherine Shi for the ‘Shadow Chasing Game’ and the Special Light Award went to ‘No Bullies Here: Enough’ by Healesville High School
