If you’re thinking about rounding up the kids and heading to the Pink Palace for this week’s Like You Children’s Film Festival, here are three of the hottest tickets.
Kensuke’s Kingdom
(Sat., Nov. 22nd, 2:15 p.m., Pink Palace Giant Screen Theater)
Sir Michael Morpurgo is an acclaimed author of young adult novels who was born in St. Albans, just outside of London, during World War II. His most famous work is probably War Horse, which was adapted into a film by Steven Spielberg in 2011 and was nominated for six Academy Awards. Kensuke’s Kingdom was written in 1998 and gained an audience in the United States when it was published by Scholastic. Directed by Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry, this animated adaptation is a joint production between companies from Luxembourg, England, France, and Wales, but never made it into wide release in the United States.
In the film, young Michael (voiced by Aaron MacGregor) sets off with his parents (voiced by Sally Hawkins and Cillian Murphy) on an around-the-world sailing adventure. But it’s soon obvious that Michael may not be cut out for the nautical life. His sibling rivalry with Becky (Raffey Cassidy) gets in the way of harmonious crew life. He becomes jealous when she is allowed to take a night watch on her own, and schemes to take her place. But once he’s alone on deck with his beloved dog Stella Artois, the weather closes in. As he and his father fight to save the little sailing vessel, Michael and Stella are swept overboard.
When he awakens on a strange beach, Michael discovers that he is stranded on a tropical island. But as he struggles to find fresh water and food, he quickly comes to understand that he is not alone. Kensuke (voiced by the legendary Japanese actor Ken Watanabe) has lived alone on the island since he was stranded there as a Japanese sailor during World War II. Since he believes his family was killed in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, he has little incentive to rejoin the outside world. He has built a little paradise for one on the island and slowly adapts to a new guest. Together, the unlikely pair must join together to fight off poachers who invade the island to hunt the population of friendly orangutans.
With some beautifully detailed hand-drawn animation, and a deep if simple story, this film, which was initially released during the pandemic, is an overlooked gem.
Story & Pictures By
(Sun., Nov. 23rd, 10 a.m., Deep End Theater)
Director Joanna Rudnick dives deep into a topic almost everyone has experienced: children’s picture books. You’ve most likely had some of these titles read to you as a young child, and then turned around and read them to your own children. “It covers a little bit of some of the classics like The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Where the Wild Things Are and really how unexpectedly controversial some of these classic children’s books were at the time of the release, and how they were different and unexpected,” says Noah Glenn, founder of the Like You Children’s Film Festival. “But then, it also follows some modern children’s book authors and illustrators to show how they’re making a mark and bringing conversations around identity and other big ideas and big topics, and distilling them into picture book stories.”
Author/illustrators Christian Robinson, Yuyi Morales, and Mac Barnett explain why “children are the smartest, bravest readers.” They talk about what it takes to make it in the world of children’s publishing today, and expound on their inspirations and the milestones in the history of kids lit. Robinson, a Black man who was estranged from his mother at an early age, discusses how Ezra Jack Keats became a role model for him after discovering Keats’ 1962 book The Snowy Day, which was the first major picture book to feature an African-American child as the main character. Morales walks viewers through her process and talks about the origin of the concept of moral instruction in children’s books with the Little Goody Two-Shoes books. We see Barnett debut his newest book and talk about the inspiration he found in Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon.
Maya, Give Me a Title
(Sun., Nov. 23rd, 7 p.m., Deep End Theater)
In 2004, director Michel Gondry created one of the defining films of the 21st century with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In addition to the numerous other films, music videos, visual art pieces, and commercials he has created over the years, he had a long-running side project in stop-motion animation.
Well, calling it a “side project” may be mischaracterizing it. While he was often on the road for his projects, he kept in touch with his daughter Maya by creating short films from ideas she came up with, usually while she was taking a bath. At first, he did it in hotel rooms using his smartphone, colored construction paper, and a sharp pair of scissors. Eventually, he graduated to a real flatbed animation setup, but in true Gondry fashion, the films never lost their handmade flavor.
Working from prompts like “Every day cats save humans, but no one talks about it,” and “Maya, The Mermaid, and The Treasure,” Gondry’s charming creations grow up with Maya. When she doesn’t like where a story is going, the pair tear up the script and veer into a new, usually stranger direction. Eventually, they graduate to a crime thriller starring Maya’s grandparents (known as “Boum Boum and Pampa”) that is as fun and spectacular as anything in theaters costing tens of millions of dollars. This endlessly entertaining work from a major director gives the Like You Children’s Film Festival a worthy closing night spectacle.