Camera Zizanio

Two teachers’ interest  in cinema and the children lead them to create an institution that aspires to be a great feast of young people’s audiovisual creation, in the autonomous region of Extremadura, Spain. And up to now they have accomplished it with great success.

José Luis Muñoz Bejarano and Antonio L. Aranda Rodríguez organized the 1st  CERTAMEN AUDIOVISUAL CENTROS EDUCATIVOS EXTREMADURA, as it is named, three years ago.  Every year the event takes place in a different city of Extremadura.

During  the 3 days of the festival (from 6 to 9 of May), the children of Extremadura have the chance to present their films (created in their schools ), meet each other and also attend workshops.

CERTAMEN AUDIOVISUAL  it’s not a Festival -in a formal meaning- but a meeting. It  has a non- competitive form    and so the prize for the children is the trip and their stay. And it’s something that they really appreciate.

This year we had the chance to attend the 3rd edition of this festival, as the staff of Camera Zizanio were the only foreign guests invited. The city that hosted the festival was Don Benito, a city of 30.000 inhabitants.

Camera Zizanio’s representatives, Nikos Theodosiou (artistic director) and Nikoleta Georgakopoulou, had the chance to present the work that we do with children and also to screen five films made by children from Greece.

Antonio L. Aranda Rodríguez, Nikos Theodosiou, José Luis Muñoz Bejarano

The screening films were: “LOVE IN WC”, “THE MERMAID AND THE ICESTAR THAT FELL FROM THE SKY”,  “READY, SET, ROB”,  “EMMA AND THE HISTORY EXAM”, “TURN OVER A NEW PAGE”.

Mrs. Elena La Banda and Rosana Hilara ,artistic directors  of the student’s film festival in Mardid –MUVIES (Muestra de videos de la Comunidad de Madrid), were also invited and presented their work. (http://www.muvies.es)

Is  profound that the production of children’s films in  Extremadura, as well as the organizing of the Festival, that was excellent, is thanks to the voluntary and -of course- unpaid work of the educators.

For the success of this event was also important the help  of the «24 Fotogramas»association , a group of amateur cinematographers from Plasencia city. http://blog24fotogramas.blogspot.com/

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More information about the CERTAMEN AUDIOVISUAL CENTROS EDUCATIVOS EXTREMADURA at  http://certamenaudiovisual.educarex.es/

Camera Zizanio would like to express public thanks to our friends in Spain not only for their warm hospitality but also for their support during this difficult  situation due to the of the harsh economic measures.

Vrsac

The celebrations of  Camera Zizanio’s 10th Anniversary started  on Friday 23th of April, 2010 in Serbia.

The whole evening was dedicated to Camera Zizanio, in the frames of the Balkan +KFK Festival and the Plural+Festival, organized by the Media Education Centre – Belgrade, from 22 to 24 of April. The event was held at the Cultural Center of Vrsac in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.

The night started with the screening of a selection of films about Camera Zizanio that have been made from youngsters that have participated to our Festival in Pyrgos. Because, as the artistic director of Camera Zizanio Nikos Theodosiou said – it’s better when others speak about us, than we speak for us.

Then we had the screening of 11 films that have been made by youngsters from Greece and are the official participation of Greece for the Balkan+ KFK Festival. The night ended with Nikos Theodosiou’s documentary ‘Mr Leonard and the travelling cinema’.

But that weren’t the only representation of Greece in Vrsac. During those three days, Nikos Repoulios (Camera Zizanio’s colleague) run and animation workshop, along with Media Education Centre staff. The children that participated at this workshop came from the villages of Gudurica and Srediste, and most of them are refugees.

That was a specific initiative of the Media Education Centre – about matters that touch upon immigration, identity and diversity, something that it’s really important nowadays especially at the “sensitive” Balkan area.

First day of workshop

The short films created by the children that participated at the workshop, were screened during the Closing Ceremony on Saturday, 24th of April. And that was a great gratification for them .

On the same night, Nikos Repoulios made a reference by presenting films produced in several projects and workshops. All those films have participated in Camera Zizanio.

Nikos Theodosiou, Miomir Rajcevic, Nikos Repoulios

During the closing ceremony, Nikos Theodosiou and Nikos Repoulios were acclaimed as honorary members of the Media Education Centre. And that was the prominence of the three creative days in the beautiful city of Voivodina, with our hospitable friends.

You can find full reportage of the events in Vrsac – that also included screenings of some very interesting films from Serbia, Iran, Sri Lanka etc- at http://roamingreporters.net/RRWP/?p=1185 and some video reports at http://roamingreporters.net/RRWP/?p=1211

The next destinations for Camera Zizanio’s presentation are… Spain (9th of May) and Hungary/Romania early in July.

We have the pleasure to inform you that two awarded films from the Greek Section of Camera Zizanio 2009, where chosen to participate in the Competition Section of Youthmediafestival, that will take part from 25 to 30 May, 2010 in Berlin. Read more of this post

Camera Zizanio ‘10 (December 11 to 18, 2010)

Camera Zizanio, the European Meeting of Young People’s Audiovisual Creation, is celebrating its 10th anniversary!

This year, Camera Zizanio will take place from December 11 to 18, along with the 13th Olympia International Film Festival of Children and Young People, at the hospitable city of Pyrgos, Ilia Prefecture, Greece.

Films that are created trough workshops, school teams or individually can take the way to this unique Festival, where young audiovisual creations from Greece, Europe and from the rest of the world will meet…

There’s no restriction about the subject of the film… but films with fascist, racist, or pornographic matter will be excluded. There’s also no restriction about the means that have been used for the making of the film.

The films that will be selected for the competition sections should meet the following conditions:

– The films, individual or team work, must be created by children and young people up to 20 years old.

– The films should be created by children with a little help from the professionals and not the other way around.

– The duration should be up to 10 minutes.

Please note the deadline for entries: October 10, 2010.

For further information you can reach us at our offices in Athens at: +302108664470 or send us e-mail at camerazizanio@olympiafestival.gr .