Kids films deliver universal messages with magic, humour Now in its 26th year, festival presents in-person, online options By: Ben Waldman Posted: 3:00 AM CST Saturday, Mar. 5, 2022

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This article was published 05/03/2022 (1630 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Almost 30 years ago, Pascal Boutroy was working as a film critic in Montreal, writing about directors such as Pedro Almodóvar and Derek Jarman, reviewing serious movies made for serious grown-ups.

Then, something changed. Boutroy and his wife, Nicole Matiation, had their first child.

Suddenly, grown-up movies made way for movies made for kids.

Boutroy remembers the first “kids” movie that stopped him in his tracks after becoming a dad, 1993’s Kalle and the Angels, which he saw at a festival. The Norwegian film was about a young boy whose father, an environmental activist, dies. While grieving, the boy is visited by an angel, who asks for the boy’s help: his father refuses to go to heaven until the environment is saved.

The film was serious, but funny, magical, but realistic, and Boutroy left the screening with a fresh perspective.

Kids movies weren’t just for kids. If done well, they were for everybody, and they could be just as life-changing as any “grown-up” movie could hope to be.

And with an innocent wonder, they depict life and dismantle stereotypes. Being a kid is about the only thing every person alive can understand.

“(The films) have a deeply human quality that anyone, even adults, are happy to experience,” Boutroy says. “It nourishes them.”

So in 1996, Boutroy and Matiation (a former director of On Screen Manitoba), by then living in Winnipeg, had the idea to start a film festival focusing on pictures like that from around the world, the kind that didn’t often make their way onto shelves at Blockbuster or onto the screens at Silver City.

The Freeze Frame International Film Festival for Kids of All Ages is now in its 26th year, with a slate of exciting movies from around the world, set to screen both online and at the Centre culturel franco-manitobain from Sunday to March 13. It’s a truly diverse and eclectic collection of movies, says Boutroy, the artistic director. There’s something for everyone.

Wolfwalkers (Ireland, 2020, Rated G-8+) tells the story — in stunning animation — of a young apprentice hunter who discovers a world occupied by the titular creatures. In the Czech-French-Slovak-Polish co-production Even Mice Belong in Heaven (2021, Rated G-6+, English subtitles), a feisty mouse and shy fox become unlikely best friends when they find themselves in the animal afterlife.

In the scientific comedy Mission Ulja Funk (Poland-Germany-Luxembourg, 2020, PG, English subtitles), a young gifted scientist in a Mennonite community spots an asteroid headed toward Earth and commits herself to stopping it, even climbing into a stolen hearse with her 13-year-old classmate behind the wheel. “It’s very funny,” says Boutroy, who thought the large local Mennonite community would make the film a hit.

In My Dad Is a Sausage (Belgium-Netherlands-Germany, 2021, G-10+, English subtitles), a father in the midst of a midlife crisis links up with his daughter, the only one who believes in him, as he pursues a career as an actor.

An extensive program of Indigenous-made short films is also on the docket, including three that are Canadian-made. Angakusajaujuq: The Shaman’s Apprentice is about an aspiring female shaman in an Inuit community. Manitoba filmmaker Erica Daniels’ The Seven Sacred Laws was released last year and created in collaboration with the late Sagkeeng elder David Courchene, Jr., of the Turtle Lodge Centre of Excellence in Indigenous Education and Wellness. Tobique First Nation artist Tara Audibert, whose short The Importance of Dreaming is screening at Freeze Frame, is participating in a livestream conversation on March 8.

Several other films are showing, with the full program available at www.freezeframeonline.org.

Boutroy says the goals of the festival are to showcase movies from different countries, different perspectivesand different cultures, hopefully emulating the diverse communities who call Winnipeg home.

“I think it’s very important for children to know about the world and to see other images of childhood” other than the media frequently shown in North America.

Another goal is to give kids the means to express themselves (throughout the year, Freeze Frame, a not-for-profit and charitable organisation, runs various creative workshops) and to create accessible, affordable entertainment, made possible through dozens of partnerships and sponsors.

A single, in-person film ticket costs $6, with $4 tickets available for seniors. An all-access pass for unlimited in-person screenings costs $20, and an all-access family pass (up to four people) costs $45. Boutroy says the theatre will be capped at half-capacity, and masks are still required for guests.

For those who’d rather watch online, a single ticket costs $9, with a student discount for $5. An online pass, with a maximum of 12 screenings, amounts to $40, or less than $4 per screening. Some films are only shown in person, so guests should consult the festival program online. Tickets are available online, or at the CCFM at 340 Provencher Blvd.

Boutroy was born in Paris. “It’s the city in the world where you can see at any time the greatest diversity of films,” he says. “If you want to see an old Marx Brothers movie, an Australian film, a Finnish movie, an Iranian movie, you can find one. And that opens up your view of the world.

“It fosters understanding,” he said, something the Freeze Frame lineup does quite well.

Kids and grown-ups alike could always use a bit more of that.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com