Providence Children's Film Festival

OUR MISSION
The Providence Children’s Film Festival (PCFF) seeks films that inspire, delight, educate, and connect a diverse community of youth and families by exploring, curating, and presenting the best of independent and international cinema.

HISTORY
Fifteen years ago a group of Providence residents from varied creative backgrounds recognized that this capital city -- home to wide range of diverse cultural communities, top-notch universities and several celebrated youth arts organizations -- had all the ingredients for a children's film festival to rival what they were seeing in New York, Seattle, Chicago, and elsewhere. Feeling confident that others in the area would also want to see independent, thought-provoking films for young minds and introduce their children to the craft of filmmaking, they set about creating PCFF. A scrappy, four-day, all-volunteer run festival at first, PCFF has evolved into a multi-national, ten-day event that puts Providence in the ranks of one of the top children's film festivals in North America!

ABOUT
When February days are at their darkest and coldest, the Providence Children's Film Festival lights up its annual festival to provide the warmth of amazing stories shared together, soups from around the world, and fun film related activities. The Providence Children’s Film Festival enhances and energizes an already vibrant local arts and cultural community and has become one of the most highly anticipated family events of the year. For ten days there are screenings, filmmaking workshops, drop-in activities along with pre- and post-film presentations (we call “Reel Connections”). During the Festival, PCFF screens an average of 12 feature-length films along with over 150 short films, including live-action, documentary, animation and experimental films made by filmmakers from around the world.

ACCESS AND INCLUSIVITY
We at PCFF believe in equal access to great films, world class programs and filmmaking workshops. To achieve this access we have pursued a two-pronged strategy to lower geographical and financial barriers for everyone to be able to attend the annual festival. Our collaboration with the Community Libraries of Providence empowered us to expand our venues into ALL neighborhoods of Providence. To lower financial barriers we enacted a “give-what-you-can (or nothing at all)” ticketing system. Magical, meaningful, and transformative film storytelling experiences PCFF offers are now available to everyone regardless of their financial means.

CRITERIA
The PCFF selection committee seeks films with content that speaks positively to children, teens and families from diverse backgrounds and ethnicities. Please consider submitting if you have created work that can speak to all ages, including children and teens. We seek films that are entertaining and/or challenging to young minds with serious, true-to-life topics and narratives that may span a range of emotions. The film need not have a "story-book" ending to find a place in our festival. PCFF welcomes foreign films with subtitles, documentaries, live action, animation and experimental films that may inspire our viewers to think about the world in a new way.

SELECTION
The Artistic Director will make selections along with the Festival Film Selection jury composed of educators, filmmakers, parents and children. PCFF takes pride in bringing children into the selection process; as a member of the PCFF Jury, youth have a voice from beginning to end, taking part in final film selections, festival programming, and award distributions. PCFF will email all entrants no later than January 25, 2025 on whether their films have been selected for the festival.

SPECIAL EVENTS
In addition to our Opening Night Party, PCFF hosts a Filmmaker Soiree’ during the festival. No juice boxes or Goldfish crackers here! The Soiree’ is a low-key and relaxing get together with our star filmmakers and our festival devotee's. In between bites you may meet some filmmakers of all ages that have films in this year's festival, or share a drink with one of our invited Reel Connection speakers, or have a laugh with the people who helped create and support this year's festival.

YOUTH FILMMAKER SHOWCASE (YFS)
A very popular part of our annual festival is our Youth Filmmaker Showcase (YFS). Started ten years ago we invited youths (17 and under) and youth filmmaking groups/clubs to submit their latest work with film. These shows have become a celebration of artistic talents of youth from here in New England and especially many young filmmakers from around the world. After the screening these up-and-coming artists are provided an opportunity to share their vision to our audiences and discuss their inspiration and production challenges. Due to the wide range of ages and the diverse film styles there are no “awards” given in this category. We hope a young filmmaker would consider it an honor should their film be accepted by a very rigorous jurying of their peers and programmers.