For parents of school-age children, February break can be a trying time. Personal days at work have likely been put to use to cope with blizzards that never appeared, and the winter wind that creeps in during the middle of the month means that our energetic kids are often cooped up inside to avoid chapped cheeks and tingling toes.
To lend parents a hand in trying to deal with it all, the annual KidsBestFest/YouthFilm film series is again set to take place over the course of the break week. Now in its 17th year, it will be put on by the Northampton Arts Council at the town’s venerable Academy of Music theater from Monday, Feb. 16 through Friday, Feb. 20, bringing a collection of films to the area’s young viewers that is sometimes charming, often thought-provoking, and always a welcome break for sufferers of cabin fever. To top it off, the series is offered as a free event (donations are always welcomed to help support next year’s offerings).
Kicking things off this year is a 1:30 p.m. Monday screening of Brazilian artist Alê Abreu’s wordless film The Boy and the World. A tale of dichotomies, it follows young Cuca, whose quiet life in the country is up-ended when his father leaves for the big city. Setting off on a journey to find his father, Cuca heads toward an ever more industrial life.
Keep an eye on the animation; as Cuca’s trip brings him closer to the city, the increasing pace of his world is reflected in the evolving drawing style of the film’s artists, which grows busier and more complex as Cuca approaches the metropolis.
Hot on its heels is The Internet Cat Video Festival, which requires little more description than its name already provides. But after all, what would the Internet be without cats? Even if you’re not a cat lover — and I personally fall firmly in the canine camp — there’s no denying that cats won the Internet a long time ago. It’s no coincidence, I’m sure, that this is the one program with an additional evening screening geared toward an older crowd. If you count yourself part of our modern world, you owe it to yourself to take a look.
Wednesday brings On The Way to School, a film about schoolchildren whose walk to school is anything but ordinary. Visiting Kenya, Morocco, India, and Argentina, Pascal Plisson’s film is an eye-opening look at what getting an education means to much of the world, and at just how easily American students take that experience for granted. Ask yourself what your early schooling would have been like if, to get to class, you had to evade dangerous elephants, cross mountain paths, or be carried by your brothers across a swamp in a homemade wheelchair. These are just a few of the situations explored in the film, yet the drive for knowledge and education is so strong that the children are focused not on the immediate threat, but on the bigger and longer-lasting danger of not getting an education at all.
Also this week: Amherst Cinema gets in on the break week with their Looney Tunes Revue, an hour-long collection of the best of the best from Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, et al. Screening weekdays at 2 p.m. and Saturday at 10 a.m., this collection of classic cartoons has been digitally restored in preparation for a big screen show. Also on Saturday, the theater brings in The Parent Trap, the 1961 film about a pair of long-separated twins who meet by chance years later at summer camp, and plot to bring their parents back together. Hayley Mills (Pollyanna) stars as both of the twins who scheme to take each other’s place after camp is done.•
Jack Brown can be reached at cinemadope@gmail.com.
