Belmont World Film 19th Annual Family Festival: In-Person Screenings & Workshops

Belmont World Film’s 19th Family Festival takes place both in-person and online from January 14-23, 2022, featuring 15 film programs—including over 30 feature length and short animated, live action, and documentary films, several based on international children’s books and with others making their US premieres—and several workshops. The festival provides children age 3-12 and their families and caregivers the opportunity to see some of the world’s most remarkable current films for children that aren’t available anywhere else. Films are from Brazil, Chile, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Iceland, India, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, the UK, and the US, and will be shown in their original languages with English subtitles (read aloud through headphones at in-person screenings). Filmmakers from around the world will also participate in virtual Q&As.

Films feature stories about such subjects as: a young girl defying female stereotypes; elementary school students learning how to grow food through a 100-year-old in-school gardening program in The Netherlands; magical characters inspired by legends and stories passed down by indigenous peoples, early African inhabitants, and Portuguese ancestors; and an Indian boy living in Germany who dreams of becoming a Bollywood star. Several films are based on children’s books, such as Julia Donaldson’s Superworm (with the voices of Olivia Colman and Matt Smith), the German films Jim Button and the Wild 13 and Laura’s Star, and a selection of short film programs from Scholastic/Weston Woods based on picture books, including their newest never-before seen films, films about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mo Willems. Each day features one in-person screening at 1 PM: at the Regent Theater in Arlington (5 Medford St,) on January 15, the Majestic 7 in Watertown (81 Arsenal Yards Blvd.) on January 16, and the West Newton Cinema (1296 Washington St.) on January 17. Covid protocols will be required. The majority of film programs will also be available for online screening for all 10 days.

The workshops include three online clay modeling sessions (Gromit and Shaun the Sheep), conducted by Aardman’s (the Wallace & Gromit films) senior model maker on January 22, and a two-day, in-person workshop on film criticism led by former Boston Society of Film Critics President Tom Meek and others on January 15 and 16, at the Belmont Media Center.