MNFF Kids & Family Day

Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival will offer three family-friendly films, with screenings at 10am, 1pm and 4pm.

Along with films, families can enjoy a host of activities and a special Kids Day Menu in the Marquis Cafe. At noon MCTV’s Kurt Broderson will lead a workshop in filming chase scenes. Come ready to get behind and in front of the camera. Knee-pads not required!

Storm Boy – 10am / 109m / Ages 8+
When Michael Kingley, a successful retired businessman, unearths images from his past he remembers his long-forgotten childhood on an isolated coastline. He recounts how, as a boy, he rescued and raised an extraordinary orphaned pelican, Mr. Percival.

Their adventures and bond had a profound effect on the whole community, proving that sympathy is the most reciprocal emotion. Based on the beloved Australian children’s book, Storm Boy tells a timeless story of unusual and unconditional friendship.

Liyana – 1pm / 77m / Ages 10+
Liyana is a genre-defying documentary that tells the story of five children in the Kingdom of Eswatini in Swaziland. They metamorphosize their individual traumas into an original fable about a girl named Liyana who embarks on a perilous quest to save her young twin brothers. Liyana becomes a symbol of their collective experience, an icon of resilience. Relying heavily on visual storytelling, the film combines documentary and animation, awakening the children’s real lives and animating Liyana’s.

Tito and the Birds – 4pm / 73m / Ages 12+
Oil-painting visuals combine with eccentric and impassioned political allegory in this glorious Brazilian animated film. Tito and the Birds finds the world gripped by an epidemic: a virus that paralyzes people with fear, shrinks them into blobs and eventually turns them into rocks. Middle school whiz kid Tito sets out to find a cure, inspired by his father’s indefatigable courage. This film is half-art and half-cartoon, a joy and a challenge to creature comforts. MNFF will present the picture in Portuguese with English subtitles.