Earlier this year, we were contacted by a young person who wanted to make a film for us. Alicia Karaolou is an actress, model and filmmaker. 

This creative and ambitious young lady wanted to make a difference to children and young people with arthritis by helping to raise awareness that arthritis isn't just for adults. 

Together with members of our community - parents of children with JIA, and young people with JIA themselves - Alicia created a script for the short film. She then coordinated a fantastic group of people to make the film happen, including sourcing a location for filming, sourcing all the props, finding a brilliant director and acting in the film as the main character.  

The end result was a short awareness film beyond anything we could have ever imagined. "Arthritis isn't just for adults" has been watched over 1.5k times on our YouTube channel and nearly 4,000 times on Instagram. 

You can read more about the launch of the film on our newspost here. 

Very excitingly, we can now announce that Alicia's film has been shortlisted for the Saltways Charity Film Awards. Alicia is one of four finalists in the "Upcoming Creative" category and it is such a well-deserved recognition of her incredible talent and skill in creating an incredible short film for Juvenile Arthritis Research. 

We can't wait for the awards ceremony and no matter the outcome when the winners are announced, Alicia's film has already been a winning film in terms of raising awareness that arthritis isn't just for adults. 

Huge congratulations to Alicia for being selected as a finalist out of 200 entries. And a very big thank you to Alicia and all involved in making this incredible film: 

Alicia Karaolou – main child / young person
🎬 Director @elitsa_mrll
Producer / main child 🫡
🎥 Cinematographer @aris.economou
💡 Gaffer @tim._.clarke
📸 1st A/C @hullvisuals
🎧 Sound recordist @wjc_sounds
🎼 Music composer @ale_giovanetto

Cast :

Teacher @mr.wesley9

Students
@realwilliaml
@vidh1patel.x
@alyshia_sinead
@officialoni_1
@sisi.boyd
Alexandra Henderson
Daniella Kyriacos
Maritsa Chrysaphiades
Panayiotis Komodromou

Younger brother Theodore Karaolou