PLAY PRO
If childhood is defined as the period from birth to puberty, the time to think and watch cinema is undoubtedly much more subjective. We have established the ideal time to start watching and thinking cinema as the age of three and up until age twelve.
The presence of Portuguese films has been limited throughout the nine editions of PLAY Festival. Although there is a National Cinema Plan and support from the Cinema Institute focused on young audiences’ development, 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 creators’ awareness of the importance of forming audiences, as well as of 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 and the film education of the youngest generation, so that Portuguese cinema will always have an audience.
We also intend to train artists to understand the international circuit of production, distribution, and dissemination that exists in Europe and 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.