A CELEBRATION
A Celebration is a short drama about 8-year-old Ada living with her newly immigrated mother in Toronto, as they try to stay out of trouble and make ends meet.
2019 / 11 min / Fiction / Canada / English, Turkish
Cast: Ada Yilmaz, Simlâ Civelek, Andi Robarts, Tabitha Grove, Behzad Mohseni
Writer and Director: Mahsa Razavi, Producer: Atefeh Khademolreza, DOP: Matthew Kennedy, Funded by Toronto Art Council
Aired on CBC Network, GEM TV, Canada, 2020
WINNER
Award of Excellence, Canada Shorts Film Festival, 2019
Best Actress, The Retro Avant-Garde Film Festival, Cairo, 2020
Best Film, International Short Film of India, Mumbai, 2020
OFFICIAL SELECTION
REGARD - Festival International Du Court Métrage Au Saguenay, Canada, 2020
Narrative Shorts By Women, Boston Women's Film Festival, Boston Museum Of Fine Arts, 2019
Festival International Du Film De Nancy, France, 2020
25th International Short Film Festival In Drama, Greece, 2019
28th Kineko International Children’s Film Festival, Japan, 2021
32 Filmfest Dresden, Germany, 2020
The Kinolub Film Festival For Children And Youth, Poland, 2020
International Film Festival Cologne, Germany, 2020
Breakthrough Film Festival, Toronto, Canada, 2020
Rencontres Audiovisuelles Association's short film travelling program 'Ciné Soupe', 2021.
18th Taiwan Int'l Children's Film Festival (TICFF), 2019
Alberta International Women’s Film Festival, Canada, 2019
Edmonton Short Film Festival, Canada, 2019
Diorama International Film Festival, New Delhi, India, 2020
Festival Filministes, Montreal, Canada, 2020
Providence Children’s Film Festival, Rhod Islands, 2020
International Children's Film Festival (ICFF), India, 2020
Caminhos Film Festival, Portugal, 2019
Toronto New Wave Film Festival, Canada, 2019
“Kin” Women’s International Film Festival, Armenia, 2019
Screenings for Children (school curricula)
North America: A Celebration (2019), which is about racialized children’s experience of exclusion and racism at Canadian schools, has been screened as a part of school curricula in selected elementary schools in Toronto (North York), the US (Colorado) and was offered to teachers of selected secondary schools from all over the Quebec territory.
Europe: It was also screened for more than 25,000 children in Greece in 2020 as a part of the Drama Short Film Festival film screenings for children as well as the school screening component of the 25th edition of the REGARD International Short Film Festival in Saguenay, Quebec in 2021.
From September 2021 to September 2022, the film will be shown at the Rencontres Audiovisuelles Association's educational short film travelling program 'Ciné Soupe', which travels the schools in northern France and Belgium.