Editor

"When I think about the upcoming 2008 International Family Film Festival, I begin humming that great hit by the O’Jays, Love Train. To me, this song personifies the IFFF like no other. The first stanza reads, “The next stop that we make will be England. Tell all the folks in Russia and China too. Don’t you know its time to get on board? And let this train keep on riding, riding on through. People all over the world, join hands, start a love train, love train!”
by Yvonne Farrow

The IFFF’s Director of Business Affairs and Founder, Suzanne Shoemaker, shares that the message of “Love Train” is the secret mission of the International Family Film Festival -- to bring about world peace through filmmaking. “If a child in one country has made or shared a (virtual) film with a child in another, then maybe as an adult at the brink of disaster, he’ll pause and think, I made a film with a boy in China! How can I go to war against my friend?” And with the strides the IFFF’s sister company, Freshi Filmworx, has made the “virtual” classroom has now become a digital reality.
This year the IFFF has films made by kids of all ages, from around the world, connecting filmmakers and audiences through one heart, one mind, one world - all united by universal human experiences. From Thursday February 28th through Sunday March 2nd 2008, at the landmark Raleigh Studios in Hollywood, film lovers can enjoy a plethora of family films from seventeen diverse countries, which express a fundamental respect for humanity and the affirmative values of life that connect us all. “The IFFF is a cultural melting pot!” says Patte Dee McKee, the IFFF’s Program Director and Founder.
The IFFF promotes socially responsible films and screenplays produced for a general audience by filmmakers and studios world wide, promoting the “new-school” thought that writers, directors, actors, financiers, producers and distributors have more than enough meaty material in the family film genre to sink their teeth into. The parameters of family film have expanded, and are bursting with possibility.
The IFFF is designed to educate, cultivate, and elevate the family film genre by advocating and encouraging the creation and sharing of family film and screenplay product through film exhibition, professional, and children’s hands-on film camps, seminars, and post-film discussions focused specifically on the Family Film genre, with an intention to break the “old-school” idea that family film means film-lite.
The carefully selected films and screenplays range from the heartbreaking to the light hearted. According to Chris Shoemaker, IFFF’s Executive Director and Founder, “We are celebrating the kinds of stories and films everyone can enjoy – films with great conflict, great story telling and great emotion. The family film genre has it all.”

So, as the closing verse of Love Train reads, “All of you brothers over in Africa, tell all the folks in Egypt and Israel, too. Please don’t miss this train at the station, ‘cause if you miss it I feel sorry, sorry for you! People all over the world, join hands, start a love train, love train!” The 2008 International Family Film Festival rolls out Feb 28th – March 2nd. Don’t you miss it!