PLAY PRO

If childhood is defined as the period from birth to puberty, the time to think and see cinema is undoubtedly much more subjective. We have established as the ideal time to start watching and thinking cinema at age three and up until age thirteen.

Throughout the nine editions of PLAY Festival, the presence of Portuguese films has been limited. Although there is a National Cinema Plan and support from the Cinema Institute focused on the development of young audiences, there is no real incentive for the national creation of films suitable for young audiences.

Thus, we feel the need to create a research and information space, a sharing and training PROGRAM to promote the production of Children’s Films in Portugal. We believe that the only way to reverse this paradigm is to raise the awareness of creators to the importance of forming audiences, as well as to the strong international circuit that they are often unaware of.

We created PLAY PRO, which combines the laboratory competition to stimulate the writing of projects for children and young audiences and the Encounters about Children’s Films, the first objective of this initiative is to inform, bringing attention to the importance of investing in childhood, in the film education of the youngest, so that cinema will always have an audience.

We also intend to train artists so that they understand the international circuit of production, distribution and dissemination that exists in Europe and in the World.

Demystifying the value of artwork for children seems primordial to us, since it is often attributed a minor role, that is, it doesn’t always acquire the relevance and status that films for grown-up audiences have.