The “Migratory Birds” twittered at the 20th Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People

On Monday December 4th we took part, with great pleasure and success, in the 17th European Meeting of Young People’s Audiovisual Creation – CameraZizanio, part of the 20th Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People, with an animated film entitled “Bird Song”, which my friends and I had created with great effort at the Refugee Reception Centre of Schisto.

The trip

We set off from Athens and headed towards the town of Pyrgos in the Ilia region of the Peloponnese.  

After arriving in Pyrgos, we went to the Festival’s film theatre where there were many participants from a variety of countries.

Each group was to present its excellent production, and before we knew it, it was the turn of our animated film.

I was very nervous.  Everyone watched it with great concentration, and at the end they congratulated us and appeared very pleased.

Afterwards we discussed our film with them and arranged to meet the Greek teenage reporters of “Pyrgos Zizanio News”.  All of us had a lot of questions.  When we finished, we gave them a copy of “Migratory Birds” and they gave us a copy of their newspaper.

We really enjoyed meeting the young Greek reporters with whom we chatted in a very warm and friendly way.  It was late afternoon by the time we decided to go back to our hotel.

In the evening we went and saw a good drama film then had dinner.

At around midnight we went back to our hotel to sleep.

The next day we showed our film again, this time to the teenage reporters of “Amaliada Zizanio News”, who were particularly pleased with what the refugees had created.

From there we set of for the village of Neochori in the region of Andravida-Kyllini.  We visited the school, met the 70 students of the senior high school and presented our film and newspaper.  At around noon we got into the van and went to visit LM Village, the Syrian refugee reception centre in Myrsini, Ilia, where we were warmly received.  Again, we showed our film.

After the screening, we presented our work and gave them a copy of “Migratory Birds”.  We then had a meal in a restaurant and set off for Athens.  Those two days were really great!