Lola Kenya Screen

Lola Kenya Screen is a movement that focuses on children as agents of change through film, focusing on docu-dramas, documentary, fictional, experimental, animation, and drama films made both by children and for children. Through its film festival and skills development programme, the organisation seeks to both promote the culture of making and consuming quality audiovisual productions and also bring about socio-economic development through children's film promotion.

Since its inception in 2005, each festival has expanded the participant base for production and viewing, beginning with a focus on children aged 6 and up and now with a provision for pre-schoolers (3-6-year-olds) in the film programme. The festival has incorporated an hourly media literacy seminar to run through the six days of the festival to engage the public in thinking about the opportunities and threats inherent in the mass media. The festival has also introduced discussions after each film screening in order to offer the audience an understanding of the various issues that the film addresses in regard to the art and science of filmmaking. The festival structure aims to create an impact on the audience while giving filmmakers a chance to interact with the ultimate consumers of their work.

The skill-development programme is intended to identify and nurture creative talent among children and youth in areas such as journalism, filmmaking, arts appraisal and appreciation, and organisation and presentation of cultural and creative events. Children participate in the film jury, in programme planning and presentation of festival events, in producing articles on the event for the press, and in production workshops to make films, including both animation and documentary-style films.

Children, Youth

The Lola Kenya Screen festival shows films in 10 sections: The Golden Mboni Award Competition for the Best Children's Film, The 14-Plus Award Competition for the Best Youth Film, Films by Students, Films by Children, Films for Youth, Eastern Africa Prism, Television Series, World Panorama, Special Focus, and Kids For Kids Africa.

During the inaugural film production workshop in 2006, Antonia Ringbom of Finland facilitated an animation workshop with 10 children aged 10-15 years. They made "Films by Children for Children", a nine-film compilation. “Films by Children for Children” won the Grand Prize at the Kids for Kids Africa/ 5th World Summit on Media for Children in Johannesburg, South Africa, in March 2007. In 2007 a workshop with Annemette Karpen and Maikki Kantola of Denmark produced another compilation, "African Folk Tales Animated", screened worldwide. It won the Creativity award at Lola Kenya Screen 2008, 2nd Kids for Kids Africa Grand Prize 2008, Special Jury Prize at the Jugend Medien Berlin, and was a nominee for Best Animation at Africa Movie Academy Awards. "Santos", a documentary film produced by Lola Kenya Screen in conjunction with the Jan Vrijman Fund/International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA) in 2008, is screening across Africa in the Cinema Mondial Tour, a project by Hubert Bals Fund and Jan Vrijman Fund/IDFA, throughout 2010 and 2011.

The 5th annual event in 2010 received more than 300 films from 39 countries including: Serbia, Nepal, United States, Spain, Namibia, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Italy, India, Iran, Uganda, United Kingdom, France, Finland, Romania, Moldova, Singapore, Kenya, The Netherlands, Croatia, Tunisia, Japan, Malawi, Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, Slovenia, Kosovo, Ethiopia, Norway, Brazil, Tanzania, Uganda, Turkey, Ukraine, Latvia, Argentina, and Russia. Films were submitted in 34 languages including: Nepali, Tamang, Spanish, English, German, Polish, Danish, Italian, Tamil, Farsi, Karamojong, French, Hokkein, Dutch, Arabic, Kannada, Chichewa, Setswana, Slovene, Kiswahili, Albanian, Amharic, Sheng, Somali, Norwegian, Singala, Kinyarwanda, Portuguese, Malayalam, Gambay, Finnish, Luganda, Turkish, and Russian - from five continents: Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, and North America.

In the future, Lola Kenya Screen hopes to incorporate mobile cinema in its screening techniques and establish a film resource centre for audiovisual information and equipment to benefit students, scholars, researchers, and journalists.