As it has in previous years, this year’s edition of ŻiguŻajg International Arts Festival for Children & Young People is also featuring films in its repertoire. This year’s festival is bringing two French films to its audience – Wallay and The Big Bad Fox & Other Tales.

Wallay tracks the adventures of Ady (Makan Nathan Diarra), a 13-year-old badly-behaved boy who no longer pays any attention to his father, who raised him single-handedly. Running out of patience – and options – Ady’s father decides to send the boy to his strict uncle Amadou for the summer.

Uncle Amadou and his family live on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea, in a remote village in Burkina Faso. Stripped of his phone and his favourite gadgets Ady faces the start of his teen years in a completely alien environment. His life is about to change, and maybe he will start to understand things differently, not only about his family’s background, but also about his behaviour.

Wallay is the winner of the European Film Academy’s 2018 Young Audience Award, and it is somewhat of a tradition for ŻiguŻajg to feature the winner of this prestigious award in its line-up. 

The Young Audience Award has been an official category of the European Film Awards since 2012, and invites 12- to 14-year-old audiences across Europe to elect their favourite film every year; a sign that this coming-of-age drama must have certainly struck a chord with its target audience.

The Big Bad Fox & Other Tales is a French animated anthology comedy film directed by Benjamin Renner and Patrick Imbert, adapted from Renner’s comic books Le grand méchant renard and Un bébé à livrer.

It is somewhat of a tradition for ŻiguŻajg to feature the winner of European Film Academy’s 2018 Young Audience Award

The Big Bad Fox & Other Tales begins in a theatre where a group of animals are preparing a show. The Fox, the host of the show, tells the audience they will tell three different stories – The Big Bad Fox, A Baby to Deliver, and Saving Christmas.

The Big Bad Fox recounts the misadventures of a young clumsy fox and a feisty little red hen. The fox tries to devour the little hen on a daily basis without success. Tired of the repeated humiliation, the fox steals the hen’s eggs. This plan seems perfect, until the moment the chicks hatch…

Wallay

In A Baby to Deliver a duck and a rabbit chat peacefully under the apple tree. Suddenly, a tree branch breaks and falls on top of the rabbit along with a stork. The stork has a human baby with her that she needs to bring to the baby’s parents. But in the fall, she broke her wing. Now, rabbit, duck, and their friend pig need to find the parents of this baby.

In Saving Christmas, pig wakes up to find both rabbit and duck in front of his door. Christmas is in a few days, and they’re so excited that they have decided to build a snowman. They are distracted when they see Father Christmas, hanging from a window, about to fall. 

Not realising it is just a Christmas decoration, the intrepid trio rush to the rescue. But as they clumsily try to save him, they break him into two pieces!  They thus decide to replace Father Christmas and give out all the children’s presents in his place!

The Big Bad Fox & Other Talesis a film full of fun stories and fascinating characters for all the family; with The Guardian newspaper saying: “The look is cute, deceptively simple and suggestive of the illustrations in children’s books.”

Both Wallay and The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales are in French with English subtitles. Wallay will be screened at Spazju Kreattiv Cinema on, November 17 and 24 at 5pm.

The Big Bad Fox & Other Tales will be screened at Spazju Kreattiv Cinema on November 18 at 4pm; November 19 at 6pm and November 25 at 11:30am. It is being screened with the support of the French Embassy and Alliance Française.

ŻiguŻajg is produced by Fondazzjoni Kreattività and will run from November 16 to 25.

www.ziguzajg.org