Founded by Shawn Bowman and Sean Anderson in 2004, Indiekid Films evolved from traveling film festival events to downloadable app and Roku channel which brought independently produced world cinema created by both kids and adults to hundreds of young audiences and their families around the country. Fresh content was curated for individual film festivals in Washington, Oregon and NY. Many of the festivals featured hands on workshops where kids could try editing on old school splicers, coloring actual film strips to music, building thaumatropes and meet and greets with the filmmakers.
Films screened live as well as the on line collection coming from dozens of countries including Estonia, Cameroon, Belgium, the UK, Russia, China, Mexico, Argentina, Australia and the United States. Half of the films were made by children either working with non profit groups or independent young artists. A number of the organizations who’ve worked with Indiekid utilized film production as a tool for their young artists to express themselves and enact some type of social change in issues around poverty, racial and religious tolerance, environmental activism and war.
Featuring award winning cinema from festivals around the globe, most of the films were under ten minutes in length and were a mix of live action and various styles of animation. Many of the films were presented in their native language with English subtitles, encouraging emerging readers to deconstruct cinema for themselves. Indiekid was founded on the global exchange of ideas where every child’s opinion is valued and cultivated and creative work is celebrated.
Though the company dissolved in 2014, Shawn and Sean have remained active in children’s art and activism projects as well as digital production. Their own kids are now in college animation classes and involved in the fine arts. Over the years the friends they made through Indiekid have gone on to successful film production positions including Henson Studios and numerous film festival awards.
