PROGRAM OFFERED SATURDAY : CENTER PROMOTES CHILDREN’S FILMS

No Garbage Pail Kids, no questionable themes, no violence--at the Children’s Film and Television Center of America, based on the USC campus, light entertainment with an international flavor is the house specialty.

The public can sample the center’s offerings Saturday at the “International Family Film Fair” sponsored by TRW, to be held at Aviation Park in Redondo Beach.

In addition to screenings of short films for children from Australia, Northern Ireland, England and Canada, the all-day fair will feature live entertainment, including a magician, mime, storytellers, musicians, face painting, a caricature artist, a petting zoo and an exotic animal show.

“We’re also very lucky to be showing the winners of the Los Angeles (International) Animation Celebration,” says Ann Knapp, program director of the 17-year-old center, which represents the United States in UNESCO’s International Center of Cinema for Children and Young People. Fifty-six countries are members, dedicated to an appraisal of children’s media worldwide.

Proceeds from the fair--$3 per adult; $2 per child--will be used to fund center projects.

“We try to promote what’s good,” Knapp explains. “If we show good films to parents and say ‘you don’t have to settle for less,’ parents can stand up and be heard and have an impact on what their kids see.”

The center uses both adult and child juries to rate the films it shows, screening several each month at various locations, including libraries, culminating in an annual festival where top-rated films receive the center’s Ruby Slipper award for excellence.

Knapp says that no matter what country a film is from, children look for the same thing: a good story, an attractive look and characters they can relate to.

What about subject matter? Knapp agrees that there are good films for children on such serious issues as AIDS and child abuse, but says, “We don’t deal with that.

“We stick to entertainment films,” adds Knapp firmly. “The films submitted are generally from children’s literature. We don’t get a lot of things that are controversial and we don’t deal with nonfiction very much.”

Knapp says the center’s board of advisers includes “people from the major networks” and that the TV industry is open to the center’s input, though she avoids overt criticism of children’s television programming. “We’re not saying there’s nothing bad on TV,” she says. “Our philosophy is to point out what’s good, to show there is a market for quality programming, a sociological need for it.

“We’ve just started accepting TV entries in our festival. Internationally, TV for kids is just becoming accepted as an art medium.”

A major project in the planning stages will put more emphasis on TV, according to Knapp. “We’re trying to establish a media library--a collection of videotapes and archives.” The library, to be housed on the USC campus, will also include research on the effects on children of television violence and sexual explicitness. The material will be available for public study.

Will it also be offered to the networks?

Knapp reiterates the center’s non-confrontational posture. “We won’t go to the networks and break down doors. If by educating teachers, librarians and scholars we can bring about a higher awareness of what’s going on, that will encourage a change.”

The center’s ties with USC are strong--the university has provided space for the organization since 1975, as well as secretarial assistance and utilities, in exchange for the center’s promotion of its students who do outstanding work in the area of visual arts for children.

Knapp’s own involvement in the center began in 1984 when she interned there as a USC senior. She expresses a firm conviction of the center’s value. “Anyone who has children has an interest in this organization.”