This morning’s five minute lecture – an innovation for 2008’s theme of gender and children’s TV – was on why boys always win in the end. For the 2006 PRIX JEUNESSE, all but two programs featured boys in the lead role. In many cases, the characters weren’t stereotypical – an Israeli documentary about a boy pursuing a peace club wth Palestinian children, a sympathetic and emotional profile of a stuttering German boy, a female Swedish pre-school science show presenter – but these are the basic numbers. It would be interesting to project them back over past festivals and see if this was an anomaly.

This much I can say, based on the most recent two programs to screen – little sisters are nothing but trouble…from Mongolia to Norway.