PRIX JEUNESSE Suitcase makes its first Stop in Kyrgyzstan
End of August the Prix Jeunesse suitcase was presented at the UN House in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The workshop participants mainly came from the national broadcaster KTRK and its children’s channel Balastan, as well as from UNICEF Kyrgyzstan’s staff.
Besides programs from the last PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL 2018 also some ‘classics’ were added, such as ‘The Little Boy and The Beast’ (winner 2010) and ‘2Brothers’ (winner 2012).
The focus of the first day was on Up to 6 fiction and non-fiction. In the morning we screened non-fictional programs from the 2018 PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL, coming from countries like colombia, UK, Denmark, Norway, Czechia, Germany. From the first moment of screening the participants were really fascinated by what they saw. In the group dicussion following the screening they expressed their thoughts about the programs, debated the opinions of each other and discussed the choices the makers of the programs had made.
After the discussion session all the participants voted on the programs by filling out the ‘classic’ Prix Jeunesse International voting sheet, by giving marks on the for 4 voting criteria per program: idea, script, realisation, target group. Later I presented the outcome of the voting and compared the results in Kyrgyzstan with the results at the PRIX JEUNESSE festival 2018. This comparison was highly appreciated by the participants, they were really interested in how their local thoughts would relate to a global audience of media professionals. The Kyrgyz winner in Up to 6 Non-Fiction was the British show “Numberblocks”, followed by the German preschool documentary “Luis feeding the animals” and the Czech programme “My little garden”.
After the lunch break we screened and discussed programs from the Up to 6 fiction category. Especially the drama live action programs were well received and discussed in detail. Besides technical aspects such as camera and sound, also the performance of the child actors and the scripts were mentioned in the discussion. But at the end the animation programs scored best, with the German classic “The little boy and the beast” winning, followed by the British “Tee and Mo” and the Japanese “Pythagora Switch – Marble Brothers”.
On the second day the focus was on 7-10 non-fiction and even more participants than on the first day entered the room. We screened a wide variety of non-fiction approaches from different parts of the world: documentaries, tv formats, magazine programs. In the discussion that followed some participants kept the focus very well on the Prix Jeunesse method: idea, script, realisation, target group. Therefore the discussion touched many different angles of production as well as of content, for instance how far you can go as a producer to touch taboos such as death – a lively and strong discussion but with a lot of humor. The Top 4 in Kyrgyzstan: “2Brothers”, Netherlands, “Handball Mission”, Denmark, and “Brave”, Norway.
Together with a short introduction to my ‘Children in the Centre’ concept and a presentation of the WADADA News for Kids cooperation we had 2 intense days of imagination, fascination, debate, exchange, listening and learning, the first step in a process that will continue later this year. A big thanks to UNICEF Kyrgyzstan for this initiative.
Jan-Willem Bult, moderator
The Netherlands