Festival Endeavors to Educate and Promote Media Literacy

With Film Workshops In Schools

Program Sponsored By The Royal Bank of Canada And The British Colonial Hilton

Nassau, Bahamas – September 25, 2007 – In an effort to educate and inspire a new generation of filmmakers, The Bahamas International Film Festival (BIFF) announced today that it will be expanding its popular Kid's Film Workshop during the fourth annual BIFF by partnering with schools throughout Nassau and integrating the workshops directly into classrooms. The announcement was made by BIFF Founder and Executive Director, Leslie Vanderpool during a press conference at The British Colonial Hilton. "The Bahamas International Film Festival is committed to encouraging Bahamians to express themselves through film. The overwhelming response and success of last year's Kid's Film Workshop showed us that students are excited by the filmmaking process and some dream of breaking into the film industry. BIFF plans to provide every opportunity and platform to make those dreams a reality.” says Ms. Vanderpool.

The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) in Nassau, Bahamas is sponsoring the Kid's Film Workshops, which serve as an innovative children's mobile film studio creating a learning environment like none other. With the support of RBC, the Kid's Film Workshops will take place in classrooms throughout Nassau to heighten awareness of the positive impact of media literacy. Children, tweens and teens will have the opportunity to take part in filmmaking, music sound track production, claymation and comic book productions.

There will be two programs per day at each participating school with 15 students in each program taking place Monday, December 10 through Thursday, December 13, 2007. Schools signed on to participate in the Kid's Film Workshop venture are C. C. Sweeting Senior High, C. V. Bethel Senior High, Uriah McPhee Primary School and St. Annes High.

The British Colonial Hilton has also come on board as a Kid's Film Workshop sponsor and will host the weekend workshops prior to the school installments.

The workshops at The British Colonial Hilton will carry the same format, and are open to the public Saturday, December 9, and Sunday, December 10, 2007. In addition, the Hilton will also screen family films from BIFF's 2007 program during the workshops for those who have completed a workshop or were not able to participate.

The Kid's Film Workshop is conducted by The Director's Cut, a group of professional, award-winning educators and digital design and technology consultants from across Canada who have worked countless hours to create, develop and implement workshops that exemplify the digital kid culture. With the guidance of Director's Cut professionals, participants will explore and experiment with the latest in digital technology, in an exciting, fast-paced, child-focused environment with the ultimate goal of developing media literacy, social networking and collaboration skills.

"We are thrilled that BIFF's vision for The Bahamas youth includes the development and implementation of media based literacy," says Bryan Goldmintz, Co-founder of the Director's Cut.