Taking Children Seriously: Cultural Rights, Film Education and Regional Engagement

Children’s access to culture is a right, not a luxury or an educational add-on. Drawing on the experience of the Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People in Western Greece, we will explore what this principle means in practice: working in a region where access to diverse audiovisual culture is uneven, building long-term relationships with schools and teachers, and treating children as active cultural participants. Examples from Olympia’s film education work and Audiovisual Connect LAB-related testing will show how festivals can connect cultural rights, regional engagement and meaningful film education.

Pantelis Panteloglou was born in Athens in 1976. He studied Social Anthropology at Panteion University, where he also did postgraduate studies. He has worked in the wider cultural and audiovisual field since the beginning of 2000, in various creative, technical and administrative positions. Since the beginning of 2024 he is the artistic director of Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People, where he has been working part-time since 2011 and full-time since 2018. As of 2023 he is president of the European Children's Film Association (ECFA) for a five-year term.