Venice Kids, a new space for the youngest festgoers

Giornate degli Autori is saving the date: September 6th, the presentation of the project Venice Kids. A joint collaboration between Giornate, Isola Edipo, and 100autori, the new space is entirely tailored to the youngest festgoers at the Venice Film Festival. In fact, 2024 will see the inauguration of a space and workshop for children out to discover cinema, creativity, and the world of play and imagination. Much more than a mere Kinderheim available to parents and children, festival guests and residents of the Lido, Venice Kids will be a real “home” dreamed up by the independent sidebar (promoted by ANAC and 100autori) for the audiences of tomorrow.

All the details of the Venice Kids program, which will run concurrently with the 21th edition of Giornate degli Autori, will be revealed at 11:30 am on Wednesday, September , in 6th the Sala Laguna, with a boisterous pint-sized audience of children in attendance.

The children’s special guide on their journey into the creative imagination – the hallmark of the project set to launch in 2024 – will be animated film director Enzo d’Alò – a regular at Venice and a devotee (and the feeling is mutual) – ever since his debut film How the Toys Saved Christmas (1996) and Lucky and Zorba (1998), and right up to his brightly colored Pinocchio, the opening film at Giornate degli Autori 2012.

In the run-up to the November 9th theatrical release only (courtesy of BIM) of his latest film, Mary e lo spirito di mezzanotte, loosely based on the novel A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle, Enzo d’Alò had this to say about his involvement in the Venice Kids project: “Long before I made my feature directorial debut, I had been making animated shorts with children and teens for over ten years, building a narrative path that would accompany me throughout my career. I’d like to discuss this underlying thread that characterizes the creative sphere and share with young audiences at Venice a few examples from behind the scenes on my latest film. My idea would be to illustrate the creative arc of an animated film, from the story idea to the script, from the script to the storyboard (showing kids studies of the main characters), and from the scouting of settings and sounds up to the construction of the graphic animation universe of my cinema.”

On this occasion, Giornate degli Autori, Isola Edipo, and 100autori would like to thanks the producers and the distributor BIM for the sneak preview of a sequence from the film and the trailer for Mary e lo spirito di mezzanotte. We are all grateful to the children’s audience that will be on hand and especially to Enzo d’Alò, whom we thank for sharing this dream with us on the eve of his birthday: midnight on September 6th.