Camera Zizanio

Camera Zizanio 07

The 7^th European Meeting of Young People’s Audiovisual Creation –Camera Zizanio 07 has finally enter the final

The submission of applications has closed and… 50 youthful creations from Greece and 200 from Europe, Asia and America, are on their way to Pyrgos , Ilia.

Here, from the 29^th of November till the 8^th of December 2007, will take place the biggest European “festival” of films made by children and young people up to 20 years old.

More than 200 children that will come from Europe and hundreds from Greece will have to confront their creations.

Cameras and Zizania in a great battle.

And now… just the two of us!

Whoever wants to watch the battle, should note down the dates:

29^th November -2^nd December, the screenings of the Greek section of Camera Zizanio.

3^rd December -7^th December, the screenings of the European and International section.

8^th December, closing ceremony and awards ceremony.

And of course, from the 1^st to the 8^th of December, the big feast of children’s and juvenile cinema:

the 10^th Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People.

For the past ten years, this is the time we’ve been massively sending out invitations to the four corners of the world: The Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People is getting ready for the great celebration of children’s and young people’s cinema in the divine land of Olympia, a land filled with myth and history.

This time, however, for the celebration of our 10-year birth anniversary –the greatest thus far- we find it extremely difficult to write these few inviting words.

Our steps are heavy on the desolate hills; the scorched land; the burnt, deserted villages.

This place, where the past was once so vividly present, acted as a driving force or spontaneous mechanism to stir the knowledge accumulated therein and made us strong to face life’s hardships, is no more.

It’s as though our roots were severed. As if our shield was lost.

All over the charred landscape one can see children with an empty gaze. They are the very same children that joyfully pushed and shoved, laughed and shouted, packing themselves in the Festival’s theatres to catch a glimpse of the movies and ride the magical cinema train.

This is a gaze that tears our hearts. We want to hear their voices yet again, for these shouts are more than just agreeable: they are the future’s cries.

We cannot go back. We just don’t have that right: neither for our country, nor for its history –and most certainly not for its children.

We never, ever gave up on them against all odds. The mourning for the people we lost and the grief for the nature that was wiped out, make our souls stronger. And so we move on…

We always used to say that the struggle for life and creation is an everlasting one. Only that now it’s no longer just a struggle –it’s a war.

In this “war” we want you to be our allies.

This is a calling that goes out to all our friends, the world over, to be with us for the 10^th Olympia International Film Festival and the 7^th Camera Zizanio (1-8 December 2007), alongside the children of Ilia.

So that we can put some sound and colour in their silent, black and white reality.