Short films for children

[GloryHornet]

I volunteer at a once weekly youth club for children aged between 8 and 16. Every few months we have a film night, the members choose a film and we watch it.

Past delights include; Lion King and Cheaper By The Dozen 2

As a film fan I am keen to get them watching different films and shorts would be ideal as we could get through 3-4 instead of one feature length.

Of course I could sit them in front of Keaton, Arbuckle, Chaplin, Lloyd and Pixar and no doubt I will, but I would also be grateful for some other ideas as long as they are child friendly.

I await your interesting responses.

[PoochJD]

Hi,

What about any of the various Aardman Animation short films, or the full-length movies like Chicken Run, Wallace And Gromit: Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, et al?

Alternatively, anything by Studio Ghibli should go down well, although stick with the U certificate films, as the PG ones may be considered too dark or too mature in content/tone for 8-9 year olds. (E.g. don't show them Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away or Pom Poko, and best avoid Grave Of The Fireflies which has a 12 rating, but My Neighbour Totoro, Whisper Of The Heart, Porco Rosso et al, will be okay.)

If you want live-action movies, you could always go for stuff like Laurel And Hardy's Saps At Sea, or Charlie Chaplin's The Kid, Modern Times, or City Lights.

Try doing keyword searches via Google on things like "100 Best Kids Films", "Favourite Childrens Movies" and that kind of thing, to get you some more ideas.


Pooch

P.S. You could always do a retro evening, and showcase some of the best kids TV shows from yesteryear, e.g. Thundercats, Maid Marian And Her Merry Men, Grange Hill (you may need to hunt around and see if anyone has any episodes on VHS they could lend you for this), Bagpuss, Thunderbirds, Joe 90, any of the other Gerry Anderson shows, The Pink Panther series, etc, etc, and show the kids what great children's TV used to be, in comparison with some of the junk they get shown nowadays!