The Isfahan International Film Festival for Children and Young Adults, which held the closing ceremony of its 38th edition on Friday, clearly does not have the vibrancy and impact of its golden era, yet it continues to take place. This festival has long been in pursuit of rekindling distant and faded memories of the days when its commercial films appealed to children of the 1980s and 1990s, and its core films sparked critical discussions among film magazine critics.
New Challenges in Children's Cinema
Since the late 1990s, with social and political changes and the easier access to technologies related to watching contemporary global films, such as the rise of CDs and DVDs, the festival has gradually fallen out of the spotlight. Its films are no longer receiving attention, nor are they sparking discussions. Everything has been reduced to just a few days of the festival, and even the COVID-19 pandemic could not stop it.
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This year, the festival was held after a 40-day war, and Hamed Jafari, as the secretary of this event, tried to revitalize the festival despite all the challenges. However, the reality is that the credibility and progress of any festival are not separate from the overall state of cinema and society. It is hard to accept that children and teenagers, who spend most of their time on social media and in the virtual space, connect with the festival's films.
The Role of Festivals in the Modern World
Noel Brown points out in his book "Children's Film: Genre, Nationality, and Narrative" that special film screening programs for children in cinemas are less common than in the past, and children's cinema, in its purest form, primarily continues through children's film festivals. These festivals help in the production and viewing of specialized films for children, but most films, except for works aimed at teenagers and young adults, do not get commercial screening opportunities.
This year's International Film Festival for Children and Young Adults was trying to take steps, albeit shaky and uncertain, but necessary, with an understanding of the changes that have occurred in the visual consumption culture of children and teenagers. The festival needs to move away from nostalgia and think of alternative ways to connect with Generation Z and the generations that follow.
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