“The Joyful Nightmare” is a documentary that captures the process of creating a seven-minute film by a group of children aged 6-9 years. The children recount dreams they have had, from which they compose a group script. They then improvise theatrically based on this script, paint the scenery, proceed to create a musical score, and learn from a director-cinematographer about the possibilities offered by a 16 mm camera to narrate their script cinematically. They choose the shot-list and proceed with the filming, all dressed up and made up. These phases are documented by a team of professional filmmakers. The editing of the 7-minute film is done by a professional in a studio without the children’s participation, but according to their instructions. At the end of the hour-long documentary, we see the children watching the screening of their film, critiquing it, and coming up with the title for their film.

The aim of the documentary is to promote the children’s free expression and their right to decide for themselves the aesthetic form of their work, while also demonstrating the power of art to transform the painful experience into beautiful outcomes through its redemptive process. The children express this through the title they choose for their film, “The Joyful Nightmare,” as they realize that, although their dreams were all terrifying nightmares, they themselves were happy throughout the entire process of the collective creation of the film.

Classics O’Clock III, Friday April 4, 16:00 CET