CACTUS, THE FILM FESTIVAL FOR CHILDREN… AND EVERYONE WHO STILL REMEMBERS THEIR CHILDHOOD.
We humans live through stories: we love telling them and listening to them.
For more than a century the cinema has been one of the key places where stories have been told. The soft seats, the smell of popcorn, the chatter of the people around you that stops as soon as the lights go down, and then the story begins, coming to life on what just a moment before was nothing more than a blank canvas, an immaculate page ready to welcome a new story.
The Cactus International Children’s and Youth Film Festival was created in 2021 to combine our passion for stories and cinema. Every year we select and screen dozens of high quality films, giving voice to international authors; a voice we want to use to address the youngest members of society, because we believe that every age has the right to high quality stories, to complete and well-made shows. We often think of childhood and adolescence as the most fertile periods of life, which is true, but there can also be a tendency to think there is something missing in them, as if boys and girls were incomplete adults rather than adults in the making. The stories that are selected for the Cactus Film Festival, however, are not stories for incomplete viewers, but are specifically tailored for the audience they address and allow everyone to get to know or recognize themselves.
Despite its privileged glimpse into the world of cinema, Cactus International Children’s and Youth Film Festival is a place where every kind of story can be shared. Not only do we give space to audiovisual materials, but we also organize meetings with authors and professionals from the fields of culture and entertainment, presentations of novels for children and youths, as well as workshops to discover the secrets of cinema and the art of storytelling. And to prove to even the most skeptical that anyone can enjoy stories made for children, Cactus International Children’s and Youth Film Festival is proud to host screenings of films that have shaped the history of children’s cinema.
The Cactus International Children’s and Youth Film Festival offers an opportunity to meet other people, exchange ideas and grow. It is a place of entertainment and culture that offers valuable tools to help us to learn more about ourselves and others. This is just one little step we can take to bring us closer together and discover that we as human beings may be far apart physically or in age, but some stories and emotions can unite us wherever we are, at every age.
