Young people take the director’s chair: A cinematic stand against bullying with Marija Dzidzheva

The phone as a filmmaking tool

Organised by the KINENOVA International Film Festival and the Municipality of Kisela Voda, the three-day film workshop for primary-school pupils, “Film Smart, Leave a Mark”, is successfully taking place at the Biljana Belichanec Cultural Centre. Mentored by acclaimed Macedonian film director Marija Dzidzheva, this innovative project focuses on one of the most sensitive issues in contemporary society: violence among children and young people, with particular attention to bullying and cyberbullying.

The project aims to transform the smartphones of Generation Alpha — children born and raised with technology — from a potential source of digital violence into a powerful artistic tool for social change. Through intensive lessons, pupils in grades VIII and IX explored every stage of filmmaking: developing an idea and writing a screenplay, filming with mobile phones and completing the final edit.

They learn how to turn their personal encounters with peer violence into screenplays.

This is more than education: it is a platform where children’s voices become a visual reality, and adults are there to learn how children experience the world today.

Listening to young voices

“The workshop is intended specifically for children who are exposed every day to technology that contributes to an alarming rise in peer violence. The aim of these short formats is to work together to create films in which we hear young people’s voices, discover what troubles them and help adults better understand how children experience bullying and cyberviolence today,” mentor Dzidzheva said.

From the workshop to the big screen

Support for this visionary project comes directly from the Municipality of Kisela Voda. At the press conference announcing the opening of the festival’s 11th edition, held under the motto “At First Light”, Mayor Beti Stamenkoska-Trajkoska expressed her strong satisfaction with the collaboration.

“Through this partnership and by putting our two cinemas in Kisela Voda into use, we directly contribute to creating conditions for promoting film art, provide concrete support to young filmmakers and bring contemporary cultural content closer to residents,” Stamenkoska-Trajkoska said.

The short films created by the children during the three-day workshop will have their official public premiere on the big screen at the forthcoming KINENOVA International Film Festival, which opens on 14 October at Frosina Cinema.