The art of giving access to the cinema
Meet Cine Miau: an initiative that distributes culture through cinema in the outskirts of Ceará.
Image credit: Disclosure
By: Renato Silva / Lupa do Bem – Favela em Pauta
In Brazil and, above all, in the periphery of the country, there are many demands for basic needs that are not accessed. But what can elude urgent demands is the necessary access to cultural and recreational activities, especially for children.
But what can go beyond urgent demands is the necessary access to cultural and recreational activities, especially for children.
Faced with this reality, the International Children’s Audiovisual Exhibition (MIAU), or Cine Miau, was born, as an initiative that offers new quality audiovisual experiences for children, exploring narratives and aesthetics related to childhood and the contemporary family.
The event is a production of Invento Produções Culturais e D’grau, which also produces the Ceará International Children’s Theater Festival, with incentives from the Culture Incentive Law of the Ministry of Culture of the Government of Ceará.
Free activities with national and international films
Cine Miau is held free of charge and offers different films from Brazil and the world, which touch on themes related to the exercise of citizenship, child and youth protagonism, cultural diversity, the environment, and child psychology, among others.
The main purpose of the initiative is to democratize access to audiovisual for children, to bring knowledge and entertainment to audiences that may have never even lived the experience of watching a movie on a big screen.
The exhibition’s director, Oziel Gomes, says that, when thinking about the event’s audience, he perceived cinema as an expensive and very excluding leisure. “Which families can take their children to see a movie? Typically, this distribution is in malls. And then it ends up becoming something inaccessible to many families, especially these children.”
MIAU was created in 2019 and in the second year of the event, it already faced the limitation imposed by the pandemic, as Oziel recalls. In 2020, the event was limited to presenting content on the YouTube channel for three months.
Another concern of the show is the ethical and aesthetic training of children through audiovisuals. Because of it, a careful selection of films that arouse enchantment, thought, fun and reflection was made.
In this way, more than 90% of the sessions are aimed at students from public schools and social projects, covering children from the city, rural areas, indigenous people and those with physical and mental disabilities.
One of the ways that MIAU reaches children is through workshops, organized during the period before the exhibitions. The show’s director says that children develop content that is shown on the event’s screen.
“It’s a very cool moment because he gets to see that work he did on that giant screen, inside that fantastic cinema. So, we try to bring children an incredible experience”.
In 2021, the event began programming on May 10, with three days of exhibitions for students from schools in Canindé and Caucaia, and from May 17 to 20 for schools in Itapipoca and Santa Quitéria. In addition to two other exhibitions held at Cine São Luís, on July 8 and 9, in closed sessions for public schools.
All the programming took place after the proper authorizations by decrees of the local authorities, with 10% of the capacity in its places of accomplishment.
Service:
Cine MIAU – International Audiovisual Exhibition.
