Annual media festival for EA youth begins

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August 9, 2010 – For six days starting today, the 5th annual Lola Kenya Screen audiovisual media festival, production workshop and market for children and youth in Eastern Africa will be going on at the Kenya National Theatre.

More than 100 films from 38 countries and in 33 languages are lined up for showcasing in the 150-seat Concert Hall at the Kenya Cultural Centre that incorporates the Kenya national Theatre.

Presented by ComMattersKenya with support from Cinetoile, Africalia, Belgian Development Cooperation, European Union, ArtMatters.Info, UNESCO, Africa Movie Academy Awards, Discop Africa, Goethe-Institut in Kenya and Mwelu Foundation, Lola Kenya Screen 2010 is held on the theme, ‘Passion, Innovation and Adaptability’.

Lola Kenya Screen, that also mentors children in creative journalism, events planning and presentation, film judging, and film production, shall equip 15 children and youth in documentary filmmaking.

Apart from the annual film screening and skill-development mentorship programmes, the 2010 edition of this annual event incorporates a one-hour daily seminar on media literacy that will feature various media experts discussing both the threats and opportunities inherent in modern mass media.

This follows up on the awareness that children and youth form a large percentage of the mass media consumers yet they may not be as well informed on the possible dangers posed by the mass media.

“The daily media literacy seminar to run through the six days of the festival,” says Lola Kenya Screen director Ogova Ondego, “shall seek to enlighten the generation of today and tomorrow on the opportunities and threats inherent in the mass media.

And to achieve this Lola Kenya Screen has invited renowned media experts to share their vast knowledge with children, youth and parents at the festival.”

Local filmmakers whose works are screening in Nairobi will be available to present and discuss matters that arise from their productions. “Through this,” Ondego says, “Lola Kenya Screen believes it is the only way to build up the fledgling film sector in the eastern Africa region.”

Lola Kenya Screen 2010 has lined up five African feature films under the Africalia-supported Cinetoile African cinema network. The films on show under this programme that is aimed at promoting and distributing African cinema comprises FROM A WHISPER (Kenya), HERITAGE AFRICA (Ghana), LUMUMBA (Congo-Kinshasa), SAMBA TRAORE (Burkina Faso) and MAH SAAH SAH (Cameroon).

Lola Kenya Screen, an audiovisual media movement established in October 2005 to explore, identify and nurture creative talent among children and youth in creative journalism, filmmaking, arts appreciation, and organisation and presentation of cultural and creative events, has since 2006 helped equip 47 children and youth from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Zanzibar with basic skills in filmmaking.

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