New year, new projects and the same objective
The last months of the year 2006 were really busy in Inventura. In November we held Normální festival (Normal festival) – a film festival which introduced films dealing with the topic of developmental disabilities to Czech audiences. We showed not only films about people with learning difficulties but also films made by these people. Two short films made at Inventura’s courses of animation had their premiere right at the festival and they certainly accomplished their objective as they made the audience laugh. Normální festival was organized in cooperation with the New York NGO Sprout. The films of „Sprout film festival“ travelled to Europe for the first time. They are excellent documentaries about the life of people with diverse learning and developmental difficulties and also films made within the Sprout Make-A-Movie Program – these films give people with developmental disabilities an opportunity to star in a film and explore their artistic side. Normální festival was not only about movies but also about bringing together people with handicap and people with no obvious handicaps. The participants of Inventura‘s courses of animation took part in the opening ceremony of the festival. We put together two workshops where people with and without developmental disabilities talked about their lives, future, plans etc. Altogether, we can say that the first year of Normální festival succeeded in showing the real life and creativity of people with mental handicap and we hope that next year Normální festival will be at least equally successful. In 2007 we have much work ahead of us. Within a project called Developmental we organize a new course of filmmaking for people with developmental disabilities and their assistants. Together, people with and without handicaps will learn how to write their own story, how to make a simple screenplay, how to operate a camera and other things needed to make films. We also have a new project aimed at education and networking. We plan to look for organizations abroad, which have similar approach to the creativity of people with developmental disabilities, and find as many of them as possible. We are looking forward to seeing how the creative work with people with learning disabilities is done elsewhere and we will be happy to share our experience with other organizations. We are also going to build a network of volunteers who would help us with our work. As you can see, 2007 brings a lot of news for Inventura. But our main objective is still the same: to inspire people with no obvious handicap to think about the real abilities and possibilities of people with learning difficulties and to realize that these people can become a great source of inspiration for others.
