Christian Film Festivals are not well-known, even if their style and goals are often worth knowing. In Romania there are film festivals dedicated to young directors, to student directors and producers and to young actors and actresses.Since 2005, there is also a film festival dedicated to children and their role in society. Read here more about this year's edition in a material issued by Signis. (In the photo, an image from "Children of Beslan").

In November 2005, Anca Berlogea, president of SIGNIS Romania, organised a festival with the members of SIGNIS, called Facing Children. A four day event with feature films and documentaries, comments and discussions, it provided a forum for looking at images of children in film and responding to the challenges in terms of the charter for children’s rights. Social workers, teachers and psychologists participated. There were four guests from outside Romania.

In November 2006, Anca and SIGNIS organised another Facing Children event. This time it was a Festival and was prepared in collaboration with UNICEF which, in 2006, celebrates its 60th year. This time the festival was a six day event, with even more screenings of feature films and documentaries and discussions. The films were selected mainly from films which had won SIGNIS or Ecumenical awards. Titles included Ryna, L’enfant, Ca Commence Aujourd’hui, Ladri de Bambini, Mysterious Skin, Lilya 4 Ever, Sweet Sixteen. It concluded with a symposium held in one of Bucharest’s live theatres with presentation and discussion of children’s rights and media. 30 Romanian one minute films made by Romanian children under the auspices of SIGNIS were screened and awards made. There were also Festival awards for the documentaries screened in competition.

This time there were more than twenty visitors from other countries. Archbishop John Foley, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, attended several sessions as did the Archbishop of Bucharest, Ioan Robu. The Papal Nuncio and his secretary were present at opening of the Symposium. SIGNIS International was represented by Secretary General, Marc Aellen, the president of SIGNIS Europe, Jos Horemans. Past president and secretary general, Peter Malone and Robert Molhant, were jury members and conducted some workshops. Other SIGNIS members and associates came from Rome, Beirut and Hong Kong. Denyse Mueller represented the Protestant Cinema organisation, Interfilm.

Several Romanian film directors, of both feature films and documentaries, were also at the festival.

Of great significance, with the aid of sponsorship and the collaboration of Interfilm, documentary makers attended with their films: from BBC England and Scotland, BBC and HBO, from Norway, Holland and Spain. The Festival provided an opportunity for these film-makers to present their work and discuss it and participate in a round table discussion on media and children’s rights.

Unicef also provided local representatives to lead discussions after each screening.

Facing Children (which means looking at children with a sense of responsibility to challenge as well as seeing films which provide a face for the faceless children) shows what can be done by a national organisation to promote film culture and advocacy and to make links with the professional world of film. Hopes were expressed for further collaboration between SIGNIS and UNICEF.

The Festival awards went to: BEST DOCUMENTARY: CHILDREN OF BESLAN (BBC and HBO), directed by Ewa Ewart and Leslie Woodward, - the account of the terrorist siege in the school at Beslan, 2004, told entirely by children who survived it. BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: THE DEVIL’S MINER (Germany), directed by Richard Ladkani, Kief Davidson. - children working in the silver mines of Bolivia. BEST RESEARCH: LOST CHILDREN (Germany/Uganda), directed by Ali Samadi Ahadi, Oliver Stoltz. - the children abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army to fight in the war in Northern Uganda and their rehabilitation. A special award went to LOVE LETTERS FROM A CHILDREN’S PRISON (Norway), directed by Irish David Kinsella. - letters from a teenage prisoner to his girlfriend about his internment and life in a severe Russian goal.

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