NEW YORK, NY – The critically acclaimed New York Int’l Children’s Film Festival has announced its full slate and jury for the 16th annual edition, which runs March 1-24 at seven Manhattan locations. The nation’s largest festival for kids and teens will present four weeks of ground-breaking and thought-provoking new works for ages 3-18, with 100 new films, opening and closing galas, premieres, six short film programs, filmmaker Q&As, filmmaking workshops, A-list jury, audience voting, and the NYICFF Awards Ceremony. NYICFF is an Oscar–qualifying festival –recipients of NYICFF’s jury prizes are eligible for Oscar consideration in the Best Animated and Live Action Short Film categories.

DATES:  March 1- March 24 – Full schedule available at www.gkids.com or call 212-349-0330

LOCATIONS:   Asia Society and Museum, DGA Theater, Elinor Bunim Munroe Film Center, French Institute Alliance Française, IFC Center, Scholastic Theater, SVA Theatre

TICKETS:  Tickets for all events are now on sale at www.gkids.com. As in past years, all screenings are expected to sell out, so advance purchase is highly recommended.

NYICFF 2013 JURY:

• John Canemaker – Academy Award-winning animator
• Geena Davis – Academy Award-winning actor (The Accidental Tourist, Thelma & Louise)
• Tomm Moore – Academy Award nominated animator/director (The Secret of Kells)
• Lynne McVeigh – Associate Professor of Children’s Media at NYU Tisch School of the Arts
• Matthew Modine –Award-winning actor (Full Metal Jacket, The Dark Knight Rises)
• Michel Ocelot – Award-winning writer/director/animator (Kirikou & the Sorceress, Tales of the Night)
• Dana Points – Editor-in-Chief, Parents Magazine
• Susan Sarandon – Academy Award-winning actor (Dead Man Walking, Arbitrage)
• James Schamus – Award-winning writer/producer (Brokeback Mountain, The Ice Storm)
• Evan Shapiro – President, Participant Television
• Christine Vachon – Award-winning producer (Boys Don’t Cry, Mildred Pierce)
• Gus Van Sant – Academy Award nominated director (Milk, Good Will Hunting)
• Taika Waititi – Academy Award nominated writer/director (Two Cars One Night, Boy)
• Jeffrey Wright – Award-winning actor (Basquiat, The Ides of March)

NEW FEATURES (ALPHABETICAL):

Approved for Adoption – North American Premiere, Belgium/France/Switzerland, Laurent Boileau/Jung Henin. In this fascinating animated autobiography a series of gorgeously animated, sepia-toned vignettes – some humorous and some poetic – trace filmmaker Jung Henin from the day he is adopted from Korea by a Belgian family, through elementary school, and into his teenage years, when his emerging sense of identity begins to create fissures at home and to inflame the latent biases of his adoptive parents. The filmmaker tells his story using his own animation intercut with snippets of super-8 family footage, archival film, and new footage. The result is an animated memoir like no other: clear-eyed and unflinching, humorous and wry, and above all, inspiring in the capacity of the human heart.

In French with English subtitles - Recommended ages 11 to adult .