Family Film Festival Comes to Watertown

An annual film festival with roots in Belmont is coming to Watertown for the first time this weekend. Co-presented by the Arsenal Center for the Arts, the Belmont World Film’s ninth annual Family Film Festival offers a variety of movies, shorts, and a live performance at the Arsenal Center on Saturday, Nov. 5.

"The festival offers filmgoers an alternative to the standard Hollywood fare typically found at the multiplex," says Family Film Festival Director Rebecca Richards. "We want to show [movies] that engage children and tweens and encourage them to be accepting of others and their differences, celebrate their own uniqueness, and also are thoughtful and creative — and of course, the films have to be entertaining as well."

The festival includes animated shorts with such titles as "Children Make Terrible Pets," "Too Many Toys," and "Robot Zot." All three are animated by Soup2Nuts, an award-winning animation studio in Watertown known for its cartoons such as Home Movies, which appeared on the Cartoon Network, and WordGirl, a PBS program aimed at improving vocabulary.

According to Richards, the festival has been quite popular over the years, "especially the films for the very youngest children — the pre-K age group.  There’s not much for them to see on the big screen, so the parents (and the children) seem to really appreciate the opportunity to sit in the theater together and watch a story unfold on the big screen."

As part of the festival’s effort to "celebrate humanity around the globe," Richards notes efforts are made each year to include at least one foreign film in the line-up. This year, two of them were made in France. "Eleanor’s Secret," an animated film by Academy Award nominee Dominquez Monferey (Destino), focuses on a young girl’s struggle to learn to read and her eventual discovery of the magic of books.  "A Cat in Paris" tells the tale of Dino, a feline who spends his days with a little girl who doesn’t speak, and nights with a big-hearted cat burglar.

"We usually show more animated films than live-action, but that can change from year to year, depending on what we decide to include," Richards says. "We have sometimes had live performers in the past and have also offered a hands-on animation workshop."

A live circus performance will precede the showing of "Circus Dreams," a documentary that follows a group of 12 to 18 year-olds living out their dreams as performers with a traveling youth circus. The film tracks the group from their auditions through rehearsals, culminating in a five-state circus tour.

"I've always been fascinated by the circus and circus performers, so to showcase a film about Vermont's traveling youth circus, Circus Smirkus, seemed like a natural fit for a family film festival," Richards says.

Tickets for the morning screenings are $3; the afternoon programs are $5 for children under 12 and $7 for adults. Festival passes are $15 for children 12 and under and $20 for adults. Tickets may be purchased at the Arsenal Center box office.

For more information or see the full schedule of films, click  or visit www.belmontworldfilm.org.  The festival continues next week on Friday, November 11 at Belmont's Studio Cinema.  For specific information on times and shows in Belmont, click .