Films aim high for the short set

[Times photo: Skip O’Rourke 2002]

Margaret Murray, 37, has organized several film festivals.

Chaille Stovall, 14, will be honored for his career work. [Times files 2000]

The corridor leading to auditorium 18 at Muvico Centro Ybor 20 is lined with posters promoting the next round of movies that children will be urged to see:

Bruce Almighty starring Jim Carrey. The American Idol spinoff, From Justin to Kelly. Pirates of the Caribbean. Daddy Day Care.

Each one created by adults certain they know what children want, then making it reality with major stars and splashy ad campaigns. Films beckoning the entire family are the rage these days, with movies rated G, PG and PG-13 dominating the box office for several years.

But where is the alternative cinema for young viewers who, like their elders, shouldn't learn to accept the same old Hollywood thing each time they go to the movies?

On this morning at Centro Ybor, it's inside auditorium 18.

A collection of civic leaders, educators, corporate types and one designated "film goddess" are discussing KidFlix, the first Florida International Children's Film Festival, one of only a few in the Southeast. For two weekends, June 5-8 and June 14-15, families can share a unique movie theater experience, a collection of films aimed at a higher level of kids' taste than usual.

Movies for children, in some cases by children, and selected for the festival by committees of children. The ticket-taker may be a 12-year-old volunteer. The filmmaker being honored with a career retrospective is 14. Look at the KidFlix media guide and each face on the pages belongs to a child except one:

Festival coordinator Margaret Murray, age 37, acting like a kid.

Murray has organized several film festivals, but never for this audience. Her innovative Movies That Move series brought obscure, artful independent films to both sides of Tampa Bay. Last year she headed the film selection process for the Tampa Bay International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, the fourth-largest event of its kind in the United States. The Dali Museum tapped Murray to arrange a Russian surrealism film series.

None of those assignments worried Murray as much as this one.

"Logistically, there are differences," she says. "I thought about having thousands of little children here who have probably never been to a film festival before. That gave me hives one night.

"But film is film and a great experience is a great experience."

But film can be an experience with its share of concerns, especially when children are involved. A few minutes earlier, Murray had checked a montage reel of film clips from a few of the festival selections. She wanted to see how the preview turned out before sharing it with supporters and representatives of sponsors including, in the interest of full disclosure, the St. Petersburg Times.

"I'm terrified," Murray says, although a smile suggested not too scared. "I thought: My gosh, are these children-appropriate? Are kids going to like these?'

"I know I have it in me, but it is a big leap."

Murray also saw those Hollywood posters in the corridor. She's realistic enough to know children will still demand that kind of mainstream movie entertainment. Yet she also believes that maybe, just maybe, KidFlix can be a turning point in the cultural development of young moviegoers.

"These films speak to children," she says. "I think kids want an alternative, I really do. They're bombarded with basically the same images. Every (mainstream) film is so similar. We do give them an alternative and a chance to be a part of something different."

The KidFlix preview reel looks promising in that regard: animated shorts, some with English subtitles, serious documentaries with youthful perspective, household comedy and drama from a child's point of view. The screen fairly glowed with sincerity, warmth, innocent optimism and surprising insight. The only selection shown in its entirety, the live-action Ants - a father and son's absurd battle with pests - was one of the funniest and artistically competent shorts I've seen in quite a while.

That film, with its mild spoofs of horror movie conventions, is an example of content that makes Murray a bit skittish. But she has it on good authority - two selection committees of children ages 3 to 17 - that young viewers enjoy getting goosebumps.

"Kids love to be scared," she says. "There are all these films about monsters and horrible things happening to children, but (the committees) love that. They eat that up. Those sweet little love stories between two 5-year-olds? They say, eh, that's okay. But the scary movies about monsters under the bed, they want to see again."

Those committees shared more than 100 films from around the world to make their KidFlix picks. Not all are creature features. One documentary, Promises, is a three-year biography of selected Jewish and Palestinian children in Israel, curious about each other yet headed for inherited conflict. Other films offer a child's-eye view of life in Iceland, Germany and other nations.

Including, of course the United States, with the works of 14-year-old Chaille Stovall, creator of Party Animals (or How to Get to the White House in Five Easy Steps), following George Bush on the 2000 campaign trail. Stovall, who lives with parents John and Colleen in Coconut Grove, and whose extended family lives in St. Petersburg, will become the first teen honoree at any festival, showing that film, and his new documentary, Little Monk, focused on a 6-year-old Tibetan Buddhist monastery student and his secular peers to contrast spiritualism with consumerism.

What were you doing when you were 14?

"That has been the amazing thing to witness, to see the insight these children (on the committees) have," Murray says. "They've been given the chance to understand the world around them a bit better through these films."

The complete KidFlix schedule of films and events will be announced in early May, at the same time tickets become available. Some information, including how to become a volunteer, is available on the festival's Web site (www.kidflixflorida.com) Around 200 volunteers are needed for duties including greeters, merchandise sales and overseeing an array of hands-on activities for children.

Marion Rich of the Film Foundation of Tampa Bay, another KidFlix sponsor, tells the audience at Centro Ybor that youthful volunteers, ages 12 and older, are encouraged.

"This is a festival for kids," Rich says. "We are really going to work at training these young people to become the best volunteers out there. We will have three orientation sessions, and volunteers will be required to attend one."

The Film Foundation of Tampa Bay will receive a share of festival profits to support its annual scholarships for local cinema students, plus a high school grants program in development. Other monies will be donated to the Ybor City branch of Academy Prep under construction, a co-ed school teaching ethics and motivation to minority students with financial needs. Big Brothers and Big Sisters will benefit from the opening-night dinner in Centro Ybor's courtyard with a movie, Truman Capote's Children on Their Birthdays, after the meal. Tickets are $25, with information on the Web site.

"There is no doubt in my mind that KidFlix, in its inaugural year, will establish itself as one of Tampa Bay's signature family events," says Ed. Cassidy, Times marketing director.

That seems likely, as long as grown-ups don't get in the way.

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