This year for the first time we launch a program of documentary films for children DOCU/KIDS. We sincerely hope that Docudays UA initiative will become permanent and our young spectators will grow into cinemagoers and will support documentary movement. Darya Bassel, our program coordinator and one of its ideologists speaks about how the program DOCU/KIDS appeared and what is DOC/SADOC.

It was life itself that brought us the idea of a program for children. In 2013 before the fest we found our website editor and DOCU/ART curator, Olha Birzul, pregnant. Next year the torch was picked up by our PR-director Dar’ya Averchenko. At a certain point the question arose: “Where can we get a changing table?”. Young mothers didn’t want to disconnect from the festival work. And this is how it all started. Due to our energetic imagination a changing table quickly grew into a creative space for children. Initially we were thinking about some comfortable place where mothers could leave their kids under the care of professional nursery teachers, and watch films or visit workshops. But Yuliya Sobol took the matter into her own hands and invented an interesting program of creative activities for kids of different ages. We called it DOC/SADOC and placed it in the House of Cinema. It will be possible to leave the youngest kids under the care of professional nursery teachers; and for older children and teenagers there is a full independent program: discussions about tolerance, lessons of the sign language, and workshops on animation from the studio Red Dog, reading of books together with authors, basic knowledge on documentary cinema, and many other things. Schedule will soon appear at the festival website and on Facebook.

Of course, we couldn’t help making a separate program of documentary films for children – DOCU/KIDS. This is a selection of short- and full-length documentary animation for children aged from 8 years. It’s divided into two parts which we will present at the weekend, on 21 and 22 March. Screenings will be accompanied by discussions with a great moderator, Irina Zaytseva. It is very important for us to get a feedback from children audience. Whereas it’s our first time that we organize a program for children, but we sincerely hope to run it on a permanent basis.

Intriguingly that during selection we faced a strange feeling: we forgot how it feels to be a child! Among entries there were films which we liked but we weren’t sure whether children would like them. So we had to arrange a test screening for our friends’ and colleagues’ children. As a result something was given up and something remained. A pleasant surprise was that among the films chosen by the children there were also our favorite films. Obviously this means that we are not so grown-up yet.

The program includes much documentary animation which is known to be a universal language. That’s why DOCU/KIDS screenings are recommended to be visited by families. This is an excellent means to organize intellectual family leisure and get to know your child better. Take my word for it, after a screening you will be eagerly discussing the seen. While composing the program we paid special attention to films about children who face grown-up problems and solve them on their own. I consider these stories very inspiring.

For example, in the film Hear this! the protagonist, a ten-year-old Tristan, has deaf parents, but he himself has no hearing problems. His father is an excellent football player, and he also played for the deaf national team. Tristan’s favorite hobby is football and his biggest wish is for his school football team to be coached by his father. School management, as well as Tristan’s classmates, considers it impossible for a deaf coach to work with “normal” kids. But the boy doesn’t give up, he takes the matter into his own hands and collects a team, and organizes practice sessions in order to prove that a good coach remains a good coach. No matter whether he is deaf or not.

The main character of the picture Giovanni and the Water Ballet is not less persistent. By the way, the movie won a special prize at the last Berlinale in the section Generation Kplus. A ten-year old Giovanni has a dream: he wants to be the first boy to compete in the Dutch Synchronized Swimming Championship. Giovanni runs his own race, practices leg-split despite the fact that not everybody is as understanding as they could be, because his chosen field is viewed as typical for girls.

At the same time there are films in which children share their worries which often remain deep inside. These are hard feelings and emotions which we carry with us all our lives. For example in the documentary animation Counting Days and Years we learn three stories about children whose parents are imprisoned. What does a child feel when he faces the fact that his or her mother or father will return into his life not tonight or tomorrow but in 12 years?  

I find such films important due to one simple reason – a possibility to gain experience of compassion and empathy to another person instead of fear, as it commonly occurs. Let’s imagine that a father of one of your child’s classmates were imprisoned, in such case you would rather feel fear and anxiety that something might happen to your child, because there is a son or a daughter of a criminal near him! The child can also experience fear. Probably you can manage it and explain the situation and probably not. I think that such films help to overcome this inner conflict. They unveil curtains which hide secrets of other people’s hearts and also help to open our own hearts. And what can be more important than teach your child to open the heart to the world?

By the way, we provide subtitles to all pictures, but as for films for children we decided to make the sound track for them. We wish that these films would be convenient for young audience to watch. However, I hope, in the nearest future we, just like Dutchmen, will watch even TV channels for children only with subtitles. This is a matter of habit only. I wish we didn’t have to conceal an original dialect of a Jewish granny or a rolling speech of a French youngster.

However, we did our best to approach the process as carefully as possible and our recording engineer Masha Nesterenko worked with actors very finely.

Darya Bassel, Docudays UA program coordinator