More than 700 students from Bermuda?s nursery, primary, middle and secondary schools are expected to attend film screenings at Liberty Theatre as part of the second annual Bermuda International Film Festival?s Kids Festival school screening programme, which began yesterday.

Nursery school and younger primary school students will attend a Big World Toons programme, featuring a 40-minute series of age-appropriate shorts from the top animation studios, Dancing Diablo and Cuppa Coffee. Older primary school students will attend a Books to Film programme produced by noted educators Scholastic, the largest publisher and distributor of children?s books in the United States. The students will hear the three books ? The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, Ish, and Wild About Books ? read aloud, with images from the books projected on screen, and then will view films adapted from those books.

Middle and secondary school students will attend a screening of the award-winning documentary film, China Blue, about the conditions faced by workers in China?s blue jeans factories.

After the films, Christian Zabriskie, assistant youth librarian at the Bermuda National Library, Youth Division, will lead discussions with the students.

Students from ten schools, and two nursery schools, will participate in the programme. Participating schools are Victor Scott, West Pembroke, Heron Bay, St. George?s Prep, West End, West Pembroke, Whitney, Saltus, Warwick Academy and Berkeley Institute. Classes from The Kiddie Academy and Aerie?s Adventures were also attend.

?The positive response to our school screening programme has been very gratifying,? Mr. Zabriskie says. ?We are pleased to have such great support from teachers in the community, and we are delighted to communicate such positive messages to students in Bermuda.?

Judging the films will be: Ella Burt, seven; Francesca Maiden, eight; Valerie Rose Hirschberg, 11; Lara Hetzel, 11; Seth Wilson, 13; and Rowan Border, 13.

The six BIFF Kids jurors earned their places by writing a review of a film they had seen anytime in the last two years. They submitted the reviews to BIFF Kids, and were selected by a panel of reviewers. Jurors will be watching the films in the theatre before arriving at their decisions. Tickets to the BIFF Kids Film Festival are available online at www.biff.bm until 2 p.m. today and at the Visitors? Service Bureau, Front Street, Hamilton.

Tickets will also be available at the Liberty Theatre today from 5.30-7 p.m. and on Saturday and Sunday from 9.30 a.m. until 5 p.m.