Industry history: Young Film Fest

Both of our international film festivals - ELBE DOCK and YOUNG FILM FEST, which have merged into the BOO Festival, have a successful history of industry programs. ELBE DOCK's industry has focused primarily on aspiring filmmakers and connecting the Czech and German film industries together with the other V4 countries. We welcomed a number of international experts from screenwriting, dramaturgy, marketing, sales, film festivals, video games, new media, VR, as well as other cultural and creative industries. YOUNG FILM FEST's industry program has focused on themes related to audiovisual production for children and youth, audiovisual education and video games in the context of education in a long and systematic way.

2024

Teachers for teachers

The industry part of the programme, which took place at the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, focused on sharing good practices of teachers who have been working with film in their teaching systematically and for a long time. This international meeting of teachers from the Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia provided a platform for sharing experiences and ideas on how to use not only the creative potential of film, but also the wide range of possibilities that film as an educational tool offers. The programme included presentations by Remon Klik, Dutch Film Teacher of the Year 23/24, Martin Ganguly, university teacher and Berlinale School Project Manager, and Pia Djukic, teacher and artistic director of the Berlin Animation Festival.

Summoning Game Design

Summoning Game Design at the Kino Kavalírka focused on educational games and the use of their potential in education.

Guests:

• Marion Decloitre: coordinator of the video games department at Cinema Quai10 in Charleroi, Belgium
• Terry Klaban: student of new media at the Faculty of Arts, graduated in Bohemia and Film Studies. Czech language lecturer, who worked at film festivals and in a non-profit organization
• Katka Šťastná: student of information studies and library science, currently working on her bachelor thesis focused on testing game-based educational digital applications

Video games in Quai10

In her presentation, Marion Decloitre presented the way Quai10 works with the educational potential of video games, the types of games they work with and what makes Quai10 unique within the cinema network in Europe.

Playing Kafka

Charles Games studio's educational game, in which players learn about Franz Kafka's novel The Castle from the perspective of a surveyor K, showed how the game was tested and also how the methodology of the project day for use in a second level primary school was created as a follow-up. As part of the methodology, an interactive roleplay game was also created, functioning as an independent activity.

True Story - Amnesty International's educational game

Amnesty International's True Story app is a narrative role-playing game that allows players to experience the stories of real people facing human rights violations. Through engaging storytelling, the app educates users about global injustices and human rights. The app is also used in Amnesty's educational workshops.

In the final part of the programme, there was a joint discussion on the possibilities and approaches to using games in education.

International Forum for Audiovisual Education

The International Forum for Audiovisual Education in the Kino Kavalírka offered the largest industry programme focused on audiovisual education in the Czech Republic. The Forum offered a unique and comprehensive view of key institutions and initiatives in the field of European cinema and audiovisual education for young audiences. The programme focused on Cinekid, the largest film and media festival for children and young people and Quai10, a unique venue in Charleroi, Belgium, where film and video games intersect, as well as the work of the Film Education Network in the Netherlands. The Forum showcased innovative approaches to pre-school film education at the Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum and the Danish Film Institute, and outlined the agenda of KIDS Regio, a lobbying initiative for quality and diversity in European cinema for children and young people.

The programme also showcased the wide range of film education projects and activities provided by Visegrad institutions. These included the National Film Institute - Film Archive (Hungary), the Andrzej Wajda Centre for Film Culture (Poland), Kino Úsmev (Slovakia), the Documentary Film Centre (Czech Republic), AeroSchool (Czech Republic) and Sladovna Písek (Czech Republic), each of which offered their unique approaches to film education and engagement with young audiences.

As part of the Visegrad Young Film Days, which was also part of the International Forum for Audiovisual Education, we recorded several inspiring interviews with our guests. The recordings of these interviews can be found HERE.

Visegrad Young Film Days also took place abroad, where we organised workshops for our partners. In the Kino Úsmev in Košice we focused on working with young audiences and short films and presented the Young & Short project. At the National Film Institute - Film Archive in Budapest, we held a workshop with Martin Schantz Faurholt, film rducation editor at the Danish Film Institute. At the Wajda Film Centre in Warsaw, the workshop participants were introduced to documentary filmmaking for children and youth with documentary filmmaker and curator of the IDFA Competition for Youth Documentary Niki Padidar.

Early childhood film education

How can we work with the youngest viewers and what films to show them? Lisbeth Juhl Sibbesen (Danish Film Institute) and Samira Jakobi (DFF - Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum Frankfurt) present best practices and activities from their institutions. They also focus on ways to approach this target group without prejudice and underestimating their potential.

Connection between cinema and video games

Amelie Jennequin and Marion Decloitre from the Quai10 cinema in Charleroi, Belgium, focus on innovative ways to connect the world of video games, film and cinema culture. They reveal the potential of video games as a tool for audiovisual education and present how video games can enrich traditional educational formats.

Advocacy for children's cinema

Anne Schultka, Project Manager of the KIDS Regio initiative, presents the key areas of focus of this European platform. She offers an inspiring perspective on the current state of cinema for young audiences and outlines the challenges faced in advocacy and lobbying activities to improve the status and conditions of European cinema for children and young people.

2023

INDUSTRY PROGRAM - VISEGRAD YOUNG FILM DAYS

This year, the YFF industry programme, held at the Kino Kavalírka, focused on audiovisual education for pre-school children aged 3-6, video games in education and contemporary world film production for young people.

Sebastian Rosenow from the Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum presented Cinemini, a unique project that develops audiovisual understanding in children aged 3 to 6 through specially developed activities. The project would also be implemented for the first time within the YFF in the Czech Republic and we continue to implement it. Margreet Cornelius and Rianne van Laar from the Film Education Network in the Netherlands and Filmhub Zuid together talked about the functioning of the Film Education Network in the Netherlands and the roles played by the different Filmhubs in the country. Kristoffer Magnus Nohr Unstad's presentation focused on The Cultural Schoolbag, a cultural education project in Norway, and Filmfest Salten, a film festival for students aged 16 years old in Bodø.

There were also presentations of game studios and projects Charles Games (CZ), Impact Games (SK), GaminGEE (international) and Dreamlike (CZ), which enhance the educational and upbringing effect through video games with narratives that put young players in the centre of historical events or difficult life situations.

Film producer Stefan Lindén (SE) from the legendary SF Studios and film and commercial maker Wouter Keijzer (NL) talked about their projects for young audiences. Their presentations were followed by a discussion on audiovisual production for youth in the European context, which also included Daniel Lundquist, Programme Director of the BUFF International Festival for Children and Youth (Malmö, SE) and Luděk Staněk from TV NOVA.

2022

INDUSTRY PROGRAM - VISEGRAD YOUNG FILM DAYS

The programme took place at the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art and focused primarily on the use of short film in education and festivals. It included workshops, which served to get to know the projects and professional focus of the individual participants of the programme, as well as networking. The aim of these workshops was to find out to what extent and in what ways the participants use short films in their practice.

The program also included inspiring presentations by international guests. Daniela Toma (Nordic Youth Film Festival) presented the unique concept of a festival and workshop for youth, which takes place in the Norwegian city of Tromsø. Monica Kohka-Stein, Artistic Director of KUKI Young Short Film Festival Berlin, presented the focus and activities of her festival for children and youth, which works exclusively with short films. Daniel Lundquist, Programme Director of the BUFF International Festival for Children and Youth in Malmö, Sweden, presented the ways in which BUFF works with short film and what the short film section for children and youth means for the festival. Liisa Nurmela from Arts of Survival, Documentaries Tartu 2024 presented a documentary film project that was linked to the European Capital of Culture Tartu 2024. Sonia Le Pape from the Polish festival Kino w trampkach in Warsaw gave an insight into the structure of their festival and their work with young audiences.

2021

ONLINE INDUSTRY PROGRAM - VISEGRAD YOUNG FILM DAYS

In 2021, we prepared a large online programme focusing on the role of the parent as a role model for children in the area of media and audiovisual consumption, a topic that has become more relevant and serious in times of a global pandemic. In their masterclasses, Emese Erdös from the Hungarian National Film Institute - Film Archive and Maciej Jakubczyk from The New Horizons Association in Poland addressed this topic. Other topics such as communication, fundraising and methodologies were presented by Matthieu Bakolas, director of the Quai10 cinema in Charleroi, Belgium, Lara Netzer from the Swiss association of children's film clubs La Lanterne Magique, as well as Sabina Genz from the German Network for Film and Media Literacy VISION KINO. 

Representatives of cultural and film organisations from the V4 countries also presented themselves: 

• Emese Erdös (National Film Institute - Film Archive, Hungary)
• Jakub Viktorín (Boiler, Slovakia)
• Lucie Laitlová (DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Czech Republic)
• Kamila Tomkiel-Skowrońska (The New Horizons Association, Poland)
• Katarzyna Ślesicka (Andrzej Wajda Film Culture Center, Poland)
• Mária Môťovská (krutón, Czech Republic)
• Pavel Bednařík (Association for Film and Audiovisual Education, Czech Republic)
• Filip Kubiš (Azyl Shorts, Slovakia)

In the informal Fireside Chat, Matthieu Bakolas (Quai10, Belgium), Saskia Van Roomen (London Film School, UK) and Anne Schultka (KIDS Regio, Germany) discussed how to involve parents in audiovisual education. 

Last but not least, the programme also focused on the state of audiovisual education in the V4 countries. The discussion was moderated by the film critic Pavel Sladký and was attended by representatives of a wide range of organisations dealing with audiovisual education in the Visegrad countries.

Guests:

• Katarzyna Ślesicka (Andrzej Wajda Film Culture Center, Poland)
• György Ráduly (National Film Institute - Film Archive, Hungary)
• Pavel Bednařík (Association for Film and Audiovisual Education, Czech Republic)
• Maciej Jakubczyk (The New Horizons Association, Poland)
• Rastislav Zábojník (Department of Media Education, Faculty of Mass Media Communication, University of Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, Slovakia)
• Radka Hoffman (krutón, Czech Republic)
• László Arató (Hungarian Language and Literature Teachers Association, Maďarsko)
• Viliam Štrelinger (Azyl Shorts, Slovakia)

Spotlight

The online program also provided space for other guests to introduce their organisations through short interviews:

• Anne Schultka (KIDS-Regio)
• Charlotte Giese, Claus Hjorth (Danish Film Institute)
• Daniel Lundquist (BUFF International Film Festival for Children and Youth, Sweden)
• Franziska Kremser-Klinkertz (The Nordic Film Days Lübeck International Film Festival, Germany)
• Michael Harbauer (Schlingel International Film Festival for Children and Youth, Germany)
• Johanna Faltinat (German Children's Film Association)
• Marion Bouvier, Daniela Toma (Nordic Youth Film Festival NUFF, Tromsø, Norway)
• Monica Koshka-Stein (KUKI Young Short Film Festival Berlin, Germany)

2020

The industry program of the Young Film Fest took place in the Ponrepo cinema and its focus was on contemporary audiovisual production for children and youth, but also on the possibilities of using short films in film education. Michal Kučerák, a researcher, lecturer and curator with a focus on art mediation and digital projects, focused his presentation on transmedia storytelling. Laura Caesar from the KUKI Young Short Film Festival Berlin presented the possibilities of using short film in film education, and Michal Kučerák, together with screenwriter Jaroslav Miška and publicist and dramaturge of the Serial Killer Festival Táňa Zabloudilová, then discussed contemporary Czech audiovisual production for youth in the context of the internet.