Growing up can be hard at times, but for children who face physical or mental health problems or challenging domestic circumstances, it can be long-term traumatic experience.
To promote their cause, Action for Children has teamed up with independent cinema chain Picturehouse to announce "Lights, Camera, Action for Children", a festival of feature films on the theme of transformation, showing the challenges some children face and how dealing with them can bring about positive change.
Variously tragic, funny, sad and inspiring, these specially selected features - Stand By Me, Juno and Son of Rambow - will be shown on the first Sunday of the month across 10 Picturehouse cinemas in March, April and May.
You can claim a free ticket for any of the screenings by visiting actionforchildren.org.uk/filmseason, and downloading a voucher.
STAND BY ME
Directed by Rob Reiner in 1986, this groundbreaking film about childhood, starring River Phoenix and Wil Wheaton, follows a group of four 12-year-old boys who discover the dead body of another boy. This sensitive, gripping drama brings outstanding performances from the young actors who, as their characters and feelings emerge, encounter fights and personal difficulties on their ensuing adventure. All suffer and learn to cope with different problems - insecurities, disability, and bullying. Nominated for multiple awards, Stand By Me is the ultimate coming-of-age movie.
JUNO
Winner of an Oscar for Best Screenplay, this sharp comedy about teenage pregnancy features a supremely acerbic performance by Ellen Page as the 16-year-old Juno. Considering abortion after getting pregnant with her oddball friend Paulie, Juno decides to have the baby, but find adoptive parents by placing an ad in a local newspaper. She meets prospective couple Mark and Vanessa, but then discovers they have relationship problems of their own. Comical and poignant, the film highlights the mental and physical anguish of prospective parenthood, and explores how growing up is challenge for everyone, not only for the teenage heroine.
Read Peter Bradshaw's five-star review of the film here.
SON OF RAMBOW
This critically acclaimed quirky British comedy drama set in the early 1980s features two contrasting schoolboys who are both outsiders. Will is a shy boy from a highly religious family who restrict him from watching TV, even a documentary shown in class. Lee is the school's bad boy, thrown out of class for misbehaving. Cast out in the corridor, the boys strike up an unusual friendship. Lee inspires Will by showing him a video of Sylvester Stallone in Rambo: First Blood, and persuades him to do stunts in his own home video film which he hopes to enter in a competition. With hilarious and touching results, the film explores themes of friendship, confidence, belonging and brotherhood.
One take, two takes … as long as it takes
Though fictional, many of the films' characters poignantly reflect the lives and challenges of thousands of children today, children who are unlikely to find their own happy ending without care and support. Across a range of services, Action for Children is there for as long as it takes to help transform the lives of children and young people.
Previously known as National Children's Home, Action for Children was founded in 1869 and renamed in September 2008. The charity has a proud history of fighting injustice, deprivation and inequality for the young, and aims, above all, to help underprivileged children achieve their full potential and transform their lives.
Every year it helps nearly 170,000 children, young people and their families through nearly 450 projects in the UK, and also provides support in Southern Africa, the Caribbean and South America. It also lobbies governments for change, giving a voice to the most vulnerable children and young people in the UK.
Visit actionforchildren.org.uk/filmseason to download a voucher.
The three films will be screening at the following cinemas:
The Ritzy, Brixton, Harbour Lights Picturehouse, Southampton, Greenwich Picturehouse, Clapham Picturehouse, Picturehouse at FACT, Liverpool, City Screen York, Phoenix Picturehouse, Oxford, the Cameo, Edinburgh, Theatr Mwldan, Cardigan and the Queen's Film Theatre, Belfast.
Tickets subject to availability.
SCREENING DATES
Stand by Me, Sunday 1 March
Juno, Sunday 5 April
Son of Rambow, Sunday 3 May
