Entertaining children for 10 days is no easy task, as Rashda Ragab finds out With few exceptions, the 20th Cairo International Film Festival for Children, held under the title "Kids=Future", managed to choose addressing children's questions and aspirations, but failed to target its child viewers. One of these exceptions was an animated film from the Netherlands, The Story of Baba, based on the children's story A Little Elephant Finds His Courage by American author Nancy Baron. The hero, Baba, is a young elephant who sets out to learn what happened to his father, who left home to mediate in a dispute in the animal kingdom and never came back. Unfortunately Baba's journey into the woods, a big opportunity to show the real struggle of a young elephant going for the first time to such a large, unknown world, was not fully explored by director Joop van Wijk. The easy-going journey ends with Baba's discovery of the death of his father and an amazing but easier way of life in a new community. The film, a 20-minute DVD, is a mix of cartoon and feature shots. According to the director, this film version is just an extract from the original film in which, after listening to Baba's story, children from different parts of the world told in feature shots their own stories about the death of their own fathers. Young and old viewers of the festival film version might wonder how the young elephant learnt to be courageous and what difficulties he endured, and yet the only answer the film's writer gave at the seminar was that "he had enough courage to accept the idea of the death of his father." Van Wijk added that she would make the second part of the story in which Baba is going to make peace with the woods. One can only wonder how that will end. Lacking struggle -- a main element of a good work of art -- one child in the audience asked why the director did not show what happened to the father. Her reply was: "We want to tell children who have lost their dads in wars in many parts of the world to keep on their lives." a lesson that has much to do with the original version and not the extract. Mixing more than one cinematic technique; Baba's cartoon story and live feature close-up shots of different children of the world caught the audience's attention. Ghaith, a young bird and a hero of the 90-minute Syrian cartoon Jasmine Birds (Toyour al-Yasmine ), has won the festival's gold prize for Arabic films and programmes awarded by the Ministry of Culture, is as proud as Baba of their dead fathers' courage and great achievements. Such achievements brought the dead to life, according to what Ghaith discovered and says at the end of the film. This was a wonderful lesson told through one of the most boring and longest of animations. With fading colours and very old directing techniques, child viewers who are used to wonderful cartoon choices on satellite channels and the Internet left the movie theatre at the Opera House half way through the film. Is just being an Arabic film enough reason to earn a showing at the festival and win the gold prize? This is a question that has to be answered by the festival jury and administration, whose only aim seems to be to bring as many schoolchildren to see the films as possible. In most cases they could neither follow the English subtitles nor get the film's message, since they did not belong to its age category. They left the movie theatre disappointed, often mid-film, and hence few of the adults stayed behind to attend the seminars held after each performance. A good example of such mistakes was one of the best films of the festival, the Italian long feature The Thin Match Man, winner of the festival's prize for best international organisation for child and youth films. It was a pity to watch youngsters from Arabic schools barely reading the English-subtitles, classified by the festival as suitable for eight to 14 year olds. The children were clapping at every black out and looking forward to the end of the film. Shocked and disappointed, the film's director Marco Chiarini, who found very few grown-ups to talk to at the seminar, said "I want to know the opinion of the young viewers who have already left." Yet this wonderful adventure could be enjoyed if only the children could follow the language. The film hero, 11- year-old Simone, is living with dreams of his dead mother who used to tell him stories about the Thin Match Man who comes once a year. Whoever is fortunate enough to see him will be able to fulfil his dreams, and Simone wanted to meet him and ask for the reunion of his family once more. The creative director made use of several techniques to serve the live dreams of the hero. Cartoon shots and drawings of the boy were mixed with feature shots to express his dreams and fears. The well-written script showed the struggle between Simone the dreamy boy and his father, a farmer who wants to bring his child down to earth. In his final appearance the Thin Man tried to ease the father-son confrontation. It is the father and not the son who sees the Thin Man first, and tries to wake up his son. But with an open end, we never know whether or not Simone gets up and sees him. This seems to be the end of a phase in the child's life, after which he tries to live in a down-to-earth way and be a grown up; a fact that can be seen through his attempts to follow his father's advice on farm work. The great Chinese long feature film The Magic Tortoise sent the same message. The hero, Wang Fujing, a nine-year- old schoolboy, receives a tortoise from the school teacher as a gift. Surprisingly enough, it turns out to be magical. Fascinated, the child tries to use it for his benefit both in study and school elections to please his mother when she comes home, but in the end he learns that real happiness comes from helping others to fulfil their dreams, as when he helps a blind man to see his youngest daughter for some minutes through the tortoise's magic capabilities. So anxious is he to know about his future, Fujing and his colleagues escapes an exam at a time when the magic tortoise promises to show them a glimpse of what is to come. The tortoise's words could not be clearer: "Your future is beautiful if you are going to be creative." The last few shots of the film show Chinese people working hard in various occupations, a clear message to chil
