Red carpet experience for hundreds of children at premiere screening in Littlehampton

More than 600 pupils from three primary schools worked together to make films inspired by the Sussex Kelp Recovery Project.

On Saturday, April 5, their efforts will culminate in a red carpet premiere of their work at the Windmill Theatre in Littlehampton, with free screenings at 10am and 11am.

Pupils at River Beach Primary School in Littlehampton and Summerlea Community Primary School in Rustington started to learn about the kelp project in November 2024.

Collaborating with experts from Sussex Wildlife Trust, Sussex Underwater and film students from the University of Chichester, they explored the ecology of kelp, the history of the local campaign to save it and a range of film and animation techniques.

Supported by commissioning charity Artswork, a specialist in empowering young people to lead their own creative projects, 15 pupils from years five and six developed five film concepts to express what they had learned to new audiences.

River Beach and Summerlea joined forces with Rustington Community Primary School to produce films, with roles including creating clay-mation creatures; making and animating in paper, using drawing and junk puppetry; acting; creating sound effects; and even staging a whole school demonstration.

A range of local artists, including Littlehampton-based Lucy Seeds and Shirley Bloomfield-Davies, supported the work, and the outcome was five wildly ambitious and different new short films, all inspired by the kelp project.

One year-six pupil taking part said: "I’d like our films to inspire everybody to know how important it is to help the kelp."

The project has been developed and produced through the Young Cultural Changemakers Programme run across Arun by youth arts charity Artswork.

The programme offers training and creative opportunities to cohorts of local young people, who are able to commission artists and other professionals in order to realise their ideas for new projects designed to benefit their communities and share environmental ideas.