The Butler and the Ball has been selected for the 2022 KIDS FIRST!/News-O-Matic Film Festival, presented by News-o-Matic, the Daily News Just for Kids, which publishes a daily online magazine for 600,000 middle-school students. Each day during the week of January 10, a variety of films from the festival and their creators will be spotlighted to showcase the filmmaking process and help inspire kids to be their own storytellers someday. The Butler and the Ball will start streaming online for free on Friday, January 14, 2021, at 3am EST, when the theme will be Foreign Insights. To pre-order your free access and watch films on other days, visit here. The audience will be able to vote for their favorite film until the end of the festival on January 17.

Thousands of U.S. schools read News-o-Matic texts as part of their nonfiction literacy curriculum. Articles cover global politics, history, sports, science, tech, arts, and entertainment.

The festival is affiliated with KIDS FIRST!, an initiative of The Coalition for Quality Children’s Media, a national, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1991 whose mission is to teach children critical viewing skills and to increase the visibility and availability of quality children’s media.

The Butler and the Ball, an urban fairy tale about a lonely boy who enters a contest to become the new butler of a grieving, reclusive singer, was directed by eight-year-old Andrew Chan-Possemato, who wrote and produced it with Albert. The film has screened in France, Wales, India, Iran, Romania, Estonia, South Korea, Australia, Serbia, Greece, Canada, and the United States. Awards include Best of Festival Award for Best International Young People’s Film at the Children’s International Film Festival of Wales, Best Young Director – Live Action at the Atlanta Children’s Film Festival, Best Kids-Made Film at the San Diego International Kids’ Film Festival, Best Junior Filmmaker at Sanctuary International Film Festival in Australia, First Prize in the Fictional Movie Made by Filmmakers up to 10 Years of Age category at A-FilmTeensFest in the Czech Republic, the Under 10 category at the Prague Youth Film Festival, Best Original Screenplay of a Short Film and Jury Special Mention—Child Actor at Children Short Film Festival in England and France, and Best Youth – 18 at Alder International Short Film Festival.