The Go Global focus year will be launched during the Göteborg Film Festival on Friday 26^th of January. The Göteborg Film Festival is an ideal platform for launching the 2018 focus year, during which the whole city will be involved in preparing for Gothenburg’s 400th anniversary.

Already before the launch, on the 19^th of January, four film showings were held at the Draken cinema for 2 228 children aged 3 to 14 during the Göteborg Children’s Film Festival. More than 1 300 children arrived by bus from various areas of Gothenburg including Tynnered, Angered, Biskopsgården, Bergsjön and eastern Gothenburg. This initiative, organised in collaboration with the Göteborg Film Festival and Skolbio (School Cinema), is designed to give children from all areas of Gothenburg the opportunity to visit the Film Festival.

Among the crowds of excited children waiting in the hall for their film to start, we spoke to a group of girls and boys from the school Sjumilaskola in Biskopsgården. They have produced an intro which will be shown before each film, and they are already well informed about the Film Festival.

“It’s great because it’s so big!” says Almina, who is in year two at Sjumilaskola.

All her schoolmates agree that it’s really exciting that so many films are shown.

“I might work in films when I’m grown up,” smiles Almina happily.

Children in preschool and year two were shown animated films from different countries, while children aged 8 to 10 watched the Finnish narrative film “Halmhatten, Filttofflan och bröderna Rubens” (The Straw Hat, the Felt Slipper and the Rubens brothers). The oldest children watched the documentary “Liyana” in English and Zulu.

During the Göteborg Film Festival, world-famous film star Alicia Vikander from Gothenburg will give a masterclass. This event, organised as part of Gothenburg’s 400-year anniversary celebrations, will put Gothenburg on the international map.