The Oscar-qualifying New York Worldwide Kids’s Movie Pageant (NYICFF) declares its full characteristic movie slate for 2023. Ringing in its twenty sixth 12 months, NYICFF is North America’s largest movie competition for younger audiences. Pageant organizers share that this 12 months’s focus is on celebrating friendship, neighborhood and artwork as very important components of life and essential instruments to fight the established order.
After a COVID disruption adopted by a hybrid competition final 12 months, NYICFF is will return to all in-person screenings and occasions starting Friday, March 3, operating weekends by way of March 12 in New York Metropolis. Increasing to venues throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn this 12 months, NYICFF will unfold at SVA Theatre, Movie Discussion board, DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema, Scandinavia Home and Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn. The ultimate weekend of March 18-19 will likely be on the Sag Harbor Cinema, a brand new addition this 12 months.
Tickets are on sale now for NYICFF members; public ticketing opens February 10. (nyicff.org)
NYICFF’s Opening Evening choice is the extremely anticipated Worldwide Premiere of Ernest & Celestine: A Journey to Gibberitia, bringing the beloved characters (who first premiered at NYICFF in 2013 in Ernest & Celestine) again to audiences in an clever story accessible to all ages. The movie slyly nods to resisting conformity by way of music, neighborhood and self-determination.
The well timed Centerpiece choice is Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo, a lovely hand-drawn movie by Syrian-Canadian filmmakers Marya Zarif and André Kadi. On the middle of the story is the bustling power of town of Aleppo as seen by way of the eyes of the six-year-old Dounia; it’s a spot of affection, friendship and scrumptious treats till the battle in Syria forces her household to hunt protected harbor overseas.
This 12 months’s characteristic choice spotlights various genre-bending animation titles that inventively push the boundaries of documentary and true-to-life storytelling. Titina by Kasja Ness tells the true story of Roald Amundsen and Umberto Nobile’s 1926 journey to the North Pole from the perspective of Titina, the little canine that went alongside for the journey. Little Nicholas: Joyful as Can Be brings the beloved French character “Le Petit Nicolas” to the display by interspersing his antics with scenes drawn from the actual lives of creators Jean-Jacques Sempé and René Goscinny. The Mexican animated documentary Dwelling Is Someplace Else weaves collectively true tales from undocumented households filtered by way of the unflinching Spanglish poetry of its central narrator.
The competition continues its annual Trade Discussion board “Towards an Inclusive Future,” which brings collectively creators in any respect phases of their careers to debate kids’s media on all sides of the digital camera. New this 12 months is “NYICFF in Your Neighborhood,” free shows of a NYICFF brief movie program for ages 3-8 happening at venues citywide. Nonetheless, NYICFF isn’t just for youths! This system affords one thing for everybody who loves movie, regardless of how outdated they’re.
The characteristic movie slate additionally consists of live-action titles Belle & Sebastian: Subsequent Technology (France), My Robotic Brother (Denmark), OKThanksBye (Netherlands), One Summer time Story (Japan) and Totem (Netherlands/Luxembourg/Germany)
NYICFF Animated Options
Blue Thermal
Japan | East Coast Premiere
Masaki Tachibana, 2022
Tamaki is able to create an thrilling social life for herself at college when she, fairly actually, bumps into the members of the aeronautics membership, knocking over their glider airplane. With the dear harm achieved, she begins working within the membership to compensate. The grace that Tsuru-tama lacks on the bottom she shortly finds within the sky, however with a view to fly excessive, she has to catch a thermal—no straightforward feat for a crew that depends on studying the sky slightly than high-tech gadgets. Then there’s her older sister, Yano, who holds a grudge and can use sneaky means to win the competition for herself and her teammate, the too-cool-for-school Hatori. However Tamaki performs honest and sq., even to her personal drawback, as she’d slightly have a stiff rival than win by the competitors’s careless errors. She needs nothing greater than to repay membership captain Kuramochi, not just for the broken glider however for taking her below his wing and serving to her uncover her energy and keenness. However when he disappears, will she discover a runway again that appears like a win?
Dounia and the Princess of Aleppo
Canada, France | U.S. Premiere
Marya Zarif & André Kadi, 2022
Daring of spirit and wild of hair, six-year-old Dounia lives joyfully along with her household in Aleppo, the place she spends her time traversing the bustling souks, or marketplaces, teeming with scrumptious substances good for her grandmother’s superb dishes. Life is stuffed with sort neighbors, shared tales, and music till a progressively intensifying battle brings a rising troop of troopers to city. When the household is compelled to pack up and be a part of the worldwide ranks looking for a safer place to name house, Dounia’s grandmother stuffs rosewater sweets and different fresh-baked, homestyle delights into her bulging suitcase. However all Dounia takes along with her is a handful of nigella seeds, recognized in Syrian lore to have magical properties. Her handful of hope simply may bear rewards within the type of the legendary princess of Aleppo and her steering because the group journeys throughout Syria, the harmful sea, the daunting borders of Europe, and extra. Although navigating severe themes, this charming, humorous, and visually dazzling story affords an all-ages level of entry to discover well timed points and the timeless worth of respect for all residents of the world.
Ernest & Celestine: A Journey to Gibberitia
France, Luxembourg | Worldwide Premiere
Julien Chheng & Jean-Christophe Roger, 2022
In the end, they’re again! This time round, the once-forbidden buddies are on the path to Ernest’s house, Gibberitia. Grumpy Ernest just isn’t too happy to be headed again, but it surely’s the one place the place he can get is prized violin repaired after it’s damaged (in a serious oops!) by Celestine. The silver lining? Gibberitia is house to among the world’s best musicians who fill their time collectively taking part in the joyful sounds that fill the streets. However disappointment looms when our ursine/rodent duo arrive to silent streets and the grasp luthier nowhere to be discovered. They quickly study that this unthinkable existence is a results of a citywide ban on all music. Along with their buddies and a mysterious masked outlaw, they may use technique, hijinks, and even some onerous concessions to study that being true to your self may simply be the sweetest music of all.
Goodbye Don Glees!
Japan
Atsuko Ishizuka, 2021
This must-see, Oscar-shortlisted story is about being a teen and the mundanity and hilarity that comes with it. Teen trio Roma, Tot, and Drop collectively go by “Don Glees,” a sly tackle their glum (not gleeful) however adventurous outlook. When they’re caught actually taking part in with hearth, the group is named into query and so they should set off on a quest by way of the forest to show their innocence. Alongside the way in which, particular person motivations, like Toto’s singular give attention to learning medication and Drops’ candy perception within the energy of friendship within the face of problem, are put to the take a look at. The result’s cosmic, gutting, goofy — and sure, even gleeful.
Dwelling Is Someplace Else
Mexico | New York Premiere
Carlos Hagerman & Jorge Villalobos, 2022
The brilliance of animated documentary is that it may well present an imaginative area to ascertain another person’s story. House is Someplace Else tells three poignant tales of life on both aspect of the Mexico/US border. Our information, Lalo, is a younger Mexican artist raised in Utah who presents every story along with his slamming Spanglish poetry. There are finest buddies and sisters Evelyn and Elizabeth, one learning to develop into the only physician in her small Mexican village, the opposite making the pan of her sueños to promote in her very personal L.A. bakery. We additionally meet Jasmine as she units off to develop into an activist to guard households like her personal. Lastly, Lalo shares the story of his personal childhood, deportation expertise, and discovering a method again and reworking his challenges by way of his work as an artist and activist.
Little Nicholas: Joyful as Can Be
France
Amandine Fredon & Benjamin Massoubre, 2022
Concurrently mixing the story of a mischievous cartoon boy and his buddies with the true story of his creators, Little Nicholas is a visible delight with wit to match. When illustrator Jean-Jacques Sempé first drew little imp Nicholas, he knew he needed to get his good good friend René Goscinny (of Asterix fame) to jot down the story. As the 2 artists carry the boy to life, Nicholas himself escapes the web page to ask them about their very own childhoods. By these conversations, the buddies share tales of early creative ambition, immigrating to the U.S., and household misplaced to World Conflict II. Extra solemn moments are balanced expertly with Nicholas’s personal adventures along with his finest good friend Alceste (who merely loves toast!) in splashy watercolor, to ship moments of utter pleasure.
Lonely Fortress within the Mirror
Japan | U.S. Premiere
Keiichi Hara, 2022
Kokoro has had sufficient of the buzzing bells, shouting lecturers, noisy hallways, and imply classmates at her center college when she decides to simply keep house. Bored and trapped, she finds a portal in her bed room mirror that whisks her away to an unlimited fortress, the place she’s greeted by the mysterious and gruff Wolf Queen—a wolf in women’ clothes or the opposite method round, she’s unsure. Together with six different good however world-weary college students, she should observe all the Queen’s guidelines, together with a strict curfew. They’re all looking for a magic key, hidden someplace within the fortress, that may grant whoever finds it any want they need. As they conspire over technique and share their tales, bonding in a spot that’s freed from concern and judgment and studying when to make (and typically break) their very own guidelines within the identify of friendship. Possibly the adults will start to grasp that it’s the circumstances, and never the youngsters, that want to alter on this significant anime tailored from Tsujimura Mizuki’s fashionable YA novel.
Panda! Go Panda!
Japan
Isao Takahata, 1972
A flashback to a Pageant traditional that younger audiences missed! From the legendary crew that shaped Studio Ghibli (with authentic ideas and character designs by Hayao Miyazaki) comes two deliriously pleasant animated featurettes in a single program! Seven-year-old Mimiko has in some way persuaded her grandmother to take off by practice and go away her house alone. She’s fairly able to dealing with all duties of house and fireside, however will get greater than she bargains for when PapaPanda and child Panny flip up at her door. Their spherical our bodies, large grins, and off-kilter clowning provide the primary glints of one other charming neighbor to come back.
Titina
Norway, Belgium | East Coast Premiere
Kajsa Næss, 2022
“Kind of based mostly on true occasions.” So begins the largely true-to-life story of Titina, an intrepid fox terrier, and her companions on their aerial expedition to the North Pole. When Italian engineer Umberto Nobile is invited to construct and airship for Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, he is aware of he’s embarking on the journey of a lifetime. And who higher to accompany him on his dirigible to the highest of the world than the trusty road pup he rescued in Rome? Simply as their airship, the Norge, is poised to achieve a milestone as the primary to make the Polar flyover, a petty energy wrestle turns the journey bitter. With colourful animation blended with stay motion documentary footage, Titina captures all the actual, high-altitude antics that made historical past — all from the vantage level of 1 fortunate canine.
