ViewFinders: International Film Festival for Youth (VF4), April 19-23, a presentation of the Atlantic Film Festival, announced a record fourth year with an overall attendance of 6,750 children, teens and families for screenings, workshops and events including the ViewFinders School Program. This represents a general attendance increase of 23 per cent with a 27 per cent increase in box office.

“All the programs really worked together and complemented each other,” said Kellie Manning, ViewFinders Director. “From the pre-Festival activities and evening events to the diverse film program and interactive workshops, the quality of the entire program was reflected in the increase in both public and School Program attendance by families and educators alike.”

Building on last year’s success with evening events for youth, ViewFinders added new evening and pre-Festival events, including the Under 19 DJ Olympics workshop and urbanout: all ages concert, featuring Universal Soul, DJ Jorun and emcee Quake. Videotaping both of these events were students participating in the Cut to tha Beat music documentary workshop. Their short music documentary was premiered on Closing Night of ViewFinders before the critically acclaimed Turtles Can Fly, winner of the ViewFinders Gordon Parsons Award for Best Feature Film.

Back by popular demand was the Improv Open Mic Night for Youth, in partnership with the Halifax Comedy Festival, where youth performed skits, told jokes and did stand-up routines in front of a live audience at the Keshen Goodman Library while being taped for future broadcast by the Halifax Comedy Festival on CBC TV.

A highlight of this year’s Festival was the ever-popular Top 10 Prize Screenings for the ViewFinders Animation Challenge, sponsored by TELETOON, and Movie Challenge, sponsored by Delta Hotels, where three prizes and the People’s Choice Prize were awarded to amateur filmmakers 18 and under for each Challenge. In addition, a $10,000 scholarship to the Centre for Arts and Technology was awarded to one of the top 10 participants, Tim Ferguson, 18, of Dartmouth.

Last year, ViewFinders launched a program to give assistance to financially disadvantaged schools that otherwise may not be able to participate in ViewFinders. This year’s generous supporters through the ViewFinders Adopt-a-Class program were Extreme Group, Manulife Financial, RBC Foundation and the Zed Group.

Plans for next year’s ViewFinders are already in the works as a result of this year’s success. Visit www.atlanticfilm.com for more information.