The Kids Are Going to Love This

The parents, however...

As I've been talking about recently, the paradox of entertainment targeted at children is that it has to be marketed to adults. This may be behind what Eric Beckman refers to as "Hollywood just keeps on serving chicken fingers," when there are plenty of other things on the menu; the target audience of children's entertainment has to be so ridiculously large that the range of acceptable material ends up being equally narrow. This is especially true of books and movies, of which parents are most likely to show their children the same things they were shown as children themselves.

This is why I'm intrigued by the New York International Children's Film Festival, an event going on right now which I unfortunately cannot attend as I am currently kickin' it on spring break in sunny Columbus, Ohio. With an enormous number of events taking place from yesterday through March 18th, the festival boasts perhaps the most eclectic mix of films for ages 3-18 available anywhere, many of them imported from overseas.

The way I see it, it's a good mission. I won't kid myself that a festival like this could survive outside a big city like New York, but experiments like this are definitely things to pay attention to. Many of the selections are outside—and sometimes far, far outside—the expected range of material in children's movies. It draws into the open a very tempting question about how we might expand the range of material presented to young audiences, and if such an expansion could be successful.

What this really hinges on is one piece of information I'm missing: is the festival profitable? Given that it is in its tenth year, I certainly wouldn't rule it out; either someone's making money or Mr. Beckman has access to some very deep purses. But there are other sides to this to, such as: do any of the films shown there go on to have significant DVD sales in the US? How is the festival reviewed, and what other kinds of press does it draw?

I'm going to try to find more information as the festival goes on. In the wake of the recent Newberry Award ridiculousness, I'm intrigued to see what kind of results it draws. I'll post any results I get, but until then I urge anyone to contact me with any information I'm missing.