Two Clare groups waiting to X-HALE

Two Clare youth groups are calling on the people of the Banner County to register their votes for film projects they have shot for the X-HALE Film Festival 2013.
Ennis Youth Project and Fishbowl Youth Service, Tuamgraney have devised and created films called Think Before You Inhale and Don’t Be Smokin, Be Smokin respectively and are competing for the Most Popular Online Award at the event.
The X-HALE Film Festival is part of the X-HALE Youth Awards, an Irish Cancer Society initiative looking at novel ways to encourage young people to address smoking in their own communities.
The festival sees over 38 youth groups from around the country enter a film for the showcase event and this year they will be in with a chance of winning awards under various categories.
Ahead of the festival, which takes place on July 4, the youth groups will compete for the Online Award, seeing them vie against each other for the public’s vote.
The films all focus on the issue of smoking and can be viewed online at www.cancer.ie/xhale until June 12.
To lend support to your local group, visitors to the site can view and share the film. The film with the most views online will be awarded the title and €500 worth of digital equipment for their youth group.
Speaking about the project Eimear Cotter, Irish Cancer Society Health Promotion Officer, said, “Ennis Youth Project and Fishbowl Youth Service have made a fantastic entry to this year’s X-HALE Film Festival. We are impressed with the high level of quality of the films. Most importantly, they have dealt with the issue of smoking with originality and creativity, while asking some serious issues of the tobacco industry”.
The X-HALE Film Festival follows months of hard work by the youth groups in developing their films and several of the participating young people attended the Irish Cancer Society’s X-HALE film workshops where they learned how to film, edit and produce their work from digital filming professionals.
Both youth groups managed all aspects of their project from acting in the film to developing the finished product.
To view the X-HALE film entries, visit www.cancer.ie/xhale or for more details, follow the X-HALE Facebook page www.facebook.com/XHaleYouthAwards.