Between January13th-20th 2007 Terre des hommes Nepal (Lausanne, Switzerland) presented Children in the Shadows, a festival of films about some of the world’s most courageous children.

The Festival was unique in its range of venues, including open-air screenings under the stars in Patan’s historic Durbar Square, and in the beautiful hill town of Bandipur, with vistas of the Himalayas as our backdrop. Our goal was to ‘bring film to the people’ rather than to limit screenings to traditional festival-goers. In Patan Durbar Square street children who live rough among the city’s historic temples reported that the children portrayed in Mira Nair’s masterpiece Salaam Bombay! were “just like us”. Our screening in Bandipur was the first showing of a movie in that town in more than thirty years, and helped to promote Bandipur as a destination for cultural tourism.

A committee of highly motivated youth advisors was responsible for all aspects of the Festival, including the selection of the films and venues, promotion, and logistical support.

We expect that the Children in the Shadows Film Festival will return to Nepal in 2008, and that it will be launched in other countries as well. We strongly believe that the stories of these remarkable children deserve to be told.