Hillside Christian School Wins & Goes to the Regional Finale of UNICEF Children’s Rights Film Festival.

April 11, 2018

SXM delegation leaves on April 13 to the Regional Finale of UNICEF Children’s Rights Film Festival

Great Bay:— The UNICEF Children’s Rights Film Festival project has been in process for more than two months and included more than 100 students in the age category of 9-13 years old done collaboration of the Dutch Recovery Fund SXM and the Department of Youth. Students in afternoon and community schools learned about children’s rights, drew the right that resonated most with them, and competed in an exhibition held at the schools. The winning drawing was then used as a basis to create a script and have a movie filmed where the students starred.
Close to 250 persons showed up at the premiere, hosted on April 6, where most of the films were screened. The night included entertainment from Breakthrough Talent Star Tyler Percival and had esteemed judges such as Head of Department of Culture and artist, Clara Reyes, videographer and producer of “Consumed” a St. Maarten movie, Peter Sagnia, and internationally acclaimed entertainer, Kenyo Baly.
The last film was screened on Monday evening to ensure that all participating afternoon and community schools got a fair chance to compete. Hillside Christian school got a surprise visit, as the winning school, on Tuesday, April 10, Minister of Education, Culture, Youth & Sports, Drs. Jorien Wuite, representatives of UNICEF, the project coordinator, and film coach to surprise the students and the school representatives with the winning ticket.
The scores were fairly close. Hillside Christian School won with 64 points with their film “Don’t Do Drugs”. Both Oranje School (“Right to Choose”) and No Kidding with our Kids foundation (“Privacy is A Must”) tied with 59 points. Followed by Youth Council (“Education is Key”) with 58 points and Methodist Agogic Centre (“Play, Rest, & Relax”) with 55 points. Films were judged on three criteria: Acting- which focused on the acting skills, Story- which focused on the story line, and Film- which focused on the overall film.

There was also a prize for best overall drawing from all the schools which was chosen by the Department of Youth and the project coordinator as the organizers. This prize was given by the project coordinator and Mrs. Soraya Agard of the Department of Youth to No Kidding with our Kids Foundation for their student Julian King. This award did not go to any of the drawings which won the exhibition which was strictly voted by the students, but it was given to the drawing which depicted the right in a powerful way. This drawing also focused on the right to no drugs and displayed a story of destruction when someone uses drugs.
The winners of best film, Hillside Christian Hillside students and school representatives are scheduled to leave on April 13 to Curacao to represent St. Maarten in the regional finale of UNICEF Children’s Rights Film Festival, largest children’s film festival in the region. Winners of the regional finale will have their film included in Curacao International Film Festival one of the top film festivals in the world. During their stay in Curacao, students will connect with other students from Saba, St. Eustatius, Bonaire, Aruba, and Curacao and take part in workshops while in Curacao. The finale will take place on April 14 and the delegation will return on April 15.