Screening of KID POWER!

An evening of KID POWER!
(1970’s to 1980’s, U.S./Canada, Total of 120 min., 16mm)

Put on your vintage high-top sneakers and kick back for an evening of short films from the 1970s and 1980s that were made for a youth audience whose parents were content to plop them in front of a TV set for their education. Often falling into the category of ‘‘After School Special’’, most were made with a love and a genuine caring for their young sensitive audience. Many were released onto 16mm film for classroom use.

As Kier-la Janisse, co-editor of the newly released book Kid Power! puts it; ‘‘The weird binaries of the 80s separated everything GI Joe-style into simple good and bad, creating a climate that saw a Satanic and/or gay conspiracy around every corner… But the 70s were a more fragile and evolving time, when all the big changes the 60s brought about were actually being put into effect. All of us- parents, adults, teens, kids- had to fend for ourselves as we figured it out.’’

Revisit those pre-youtube/facebook/texting times with a 16mm projection of such after school classics as The Wave (1981) Isaac Asimov's The Ugly Little Boy (1977) and even an episode of Degrassi Junior High (1987).

Besides introducing the screening, Ms. Janisse will be offering for purchase, signed copies of Kid Power! the first book to be released by her small-press publishing company, Spectacular Optical: www.spectacularoptical.ca