Kiva Short Film Competition:
Films for the KiVa Antibullying program

Call For Entries

We are currently accepting entries for a competition on a set of short films to be used as part of the KiVa antibullying program.

The awarded films will be included in the student lessons targeted at 10-11 year-old children:
they will be shown to children as part of the lesson(s) to raise awareness and discussion about the topic.

The winning filmmakers will be awarded with a prize of 3000 euros:

the award may be given to one Entry or shared between several (at maximum, three) Entrants. All entries that are submitted by December 31, 2011 will be included in the competition.

Rules & entry form will be here by September 1st 2011

Download
Call for the KiVa Short Film Competition (pdf)

Download
Entry form for the KiVa Short Film Competition (pdf)

The KiVa program is currently in use in 90% of Finnish comprehensive schools, and the vision is to begin implementing it in other countries in the forthcoming years. The entries should therefore be appropriate for international use; preferably without spoken language and including people with different ethnic backgrounds.

Winning the competition is a great opportunity to receive international exposure and recognition: In Finland only, the materials are seen by tens of thousands of teachers and many more students. Furthermore, the winning filmmakers have the possibility to make a contract with the KiVa program developers regarding the creation of corresponding films for materials targeted at children and adolescents of 7-8 and 13-15 years of age.

The Entry should include five (5) short films that are each 1-5 minutes long, to be shown in classrooms during student lessons targeted at 10-11 year-old children. The films are meant to raise awareness of the issues specified below, to promote antibullying attitudes as well as empathy towards the targets of harassment, and to inspire further discussion and activities during the lesson.

The topics and aims of the five films are the following:

Hidden bullying: The film should illustrate different types of “hidden” bullying which does not involve direct face-to-face attacks. Such hidden bullying can be, for instance, spreading rumors and lies, thus making others view the target in a negative light; excluding and/or completely ignoring the target; doing something that might seem nice at the surface but actually carries a very negative meaning; or some other forms of bullying in which either the identity of the perpetrator is “hidden” or the negative action itself is “hidden” under a seemingly prosocial, kind act.

Cyberbullying: A film illustrating that bullying happening via mobile phone or Internet can in some cases be especially scary and traumatizing for the victim (this could be for instance, due to potentially large “audience”, the fact that the perpetrator(s) are anonymous, or that bullying follows the target everywhere, the perpetrators can reach him/her even at home).

Victim of bullying as an adult: The film should give a strong message of how the negative consequences of victimization experienced in childhood/adolescence can persist through adulthood (such negative consequences might be, for instance, low self-esteem, distrust in other people, depression, social anxiety).

Bystanders: The film should illustrate different ways in which children who are witnessing bullying may respond, and what consequences their actions (or inactions) may have for the situation. In KiVa student lessons, different ways of responding to bullying are discussed with the students (e.g., joining the bullying when someone has started it, laughing together with others, just witnessing the situation without doing anything, and standing up for the victimized peer or supporting him/her in one way or the other). Watching this film, the students should be able to identify different (positive and negative) ways of responding to bullying and to be inspired to discuss them further.

Memories: An adult memorizing his/her schooldays and a situation in which he or she witnessed bullying but did not do anything to help the victim. Alternatively, the film could be about a student thinking about past situations in which he/she did not take action, despite of feeling bad for the victim and thinking that what was happening was wrong. The film should illustrate how people witnessing bullying often would like to do something to help the victim, and often feel sorry afterwards that they didn’t. However, taking sides with the weak one is often perceived extremely difficult.