- All Rights Reserved, Motovun Film Festival 2019.
The main activity of the Young Programmers for Young Audiences! European Film Festival Network, or in short Young4Film Network, is having groups of Moving Cinema Young Programmers at festivals. In 2023, seven Young Programmers’ groups (77 Young Programmers in total) of different age selected 16 feature films and 11 short films which were presented as part of Young4Film member festivals official program in 2023. As part of their activities tailored to each festival context and following Moving Cinema Young Programmers methodology, they watched 41 feature films and 27 short films during the preselection process. As a result of the process, they selected 16 feature films and 11 short films, which were presented as part of Young4Film member festivals official program in 2023, either of the core festival event or as part of festivals’ year-long activities. Across the Young4Film partnership, a total number of 57 on-site public screenings of Young Programmers’ selections were organized in 2023 in Slovenia, Serbia, Lithuania, Italy, and Croatia. For all selections and public screenings, Young Programmers prepared various communication materials and realized live on-site introductions, in some cases they also prepared and led Q&A with filmmakers after the screenings.
To better understand the creative processes and the work of every professional involved in filmmaking,
Young Programmers have also produced digital pedagogical materials in form of video capsules:
In addition, we are developing pedagogical materials, available on the platform Inside Cinema. The main goal of Inside Cinema pedagogical materials is to explore the creative process of filmmaking with young film audiences in mind: from the initial ideas and notes to the post-production. We warmly invite you to explore the following materials:
With a strong foundation laid in 2023, all the festivals in the network are eagerly driving our mission forward. Four festivals have already wrapped up their successful 2024 editions, with Piccolo Grande Cinema set to take place this November 9–17 in Milan, Italy. You are kindly invited to explore more about each festival through the following links: Vilnius Short Film Festival, Beldocs International Documentary Film Festival, Kino Otok – Isola Cinema International Film Festival, Cinehill Film Festival, Piccolo Grande Cinema.
From 19 to 22 March 2024, network partner Piccolo Grande Cinema Film Festival and Cineteca Milano as its producer hosted the second annual meeting of representatives of all Young4Film partners in Milan, Italy. The meeting deliberately coincided with the CinemaSarà Forum, the Italian national student consultation on the future of film and cinema, organized by Cineteca Milano. Representatives of the Young Programmers from Italy, Lithuania, Slovenia, and Serbia participated in the moderated exchange on their experience collaborating with different festivals in the network, as well as in the consultation on the future of film and cinema as part of CinemaSarà Forum. Additionally, there was a public presentation of the activities of the Young4Film European Festival Network at the Interactive Film Museum (Museo Interattivo del Cinema) on 21 March 2024, attended by eighty students and teachers from all over Italy who participated in CinemaSarà Forum.
Our aim is to develop our audiences and promote European – especially non-national – films amongst the target groups of primary, secondary and university students. We entrust young programmers with the responsibility of becoming part of the festival teams, while their film programmes and promotional material are shared with young audiences at all the festivals within the network. The selected films are accompanied by original digital educational materials, which are made available to other film curators, film educators and teachers, ensuring that their reach extends beyond the Young4Film network and wider partnership. In addition to the five European film festivals, three cultural organisations working in the field of film education are also involved in the network’s activities: A Bao A Qu (Barcelona, Spain), Meno Avilys (Vilnius, Lithuania) and Kijufi (Berlin, Germany).
Our collaborative approach is based on the original Moving Cinema methodology, which has been developed since 2014 by the team of the Catalan organisation A Bao A Qu in collaboration with several international partners, with the aim of developing active young film audiences. It is precisely this past collaboration that has given us a shared understanding of the importance of developing young audiences and we will further build on our efforts in this area by considering the issues of sustainability, environmental awareness, balanced gender representation, inclusion, diversity and representativity.
The European project Young Programmers for Young Audiences! European Film Festival Network is coordinated by Kino Otok – Isola Cinema International Film Festival with the support of Creative Europe MEDIA and the Ministry of Public Administration of the Republic of Slovenia.
Young audience is an indispensable cornerstone of any lively film culture and a value that Cinehill Motovun has strived to nurture since its very beginnings. Our film program for young people has always strived to be a point of encounter in which the youngest audience gets to meet different cultures and languages, a place for discovery of new worlds and stories, and above all, for unfettered enjoyment of cinematic art.
Therefore, we are extremely happy to have celebrated the 11th edition of the program for children and youth by joining the Young4Film network. As part of this collaboration, we have expanded the program for young people and presented it in a completely new guise, under a new name and concept that puts young audience at the centre.
The Timpetill program runs prior to Cinehill as a separate section of the festival and is part of the wider European project Young4Film, aimed at European film audience development through the education of young people, and includes all regional schools in Gorski Kotar.
Just as its literary inspiration, the Timpetill program is a world without adults. It is where children and young people rule and create, where the creativity and strength of youthful spirit permeates all spheres, from the selection of films to the program winners. The program was conceived with the idea of developing interest in the wealth of European stories and languages, and brings a handful of films from all parts of Europe to its young audience. Starting this year, its programming is done by young students from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb and Vern University, while the winners were decided by the Young Jury.
An exciting program of feature and short films from all corners of Europe took its young audience on various adventures and addressed in an accessible way the problems and topics faced by the youngest members of our society. Among the seven feature films, there was a variety of styles and genres and even a few of the latest titles from world festivals.
YOUNG SELECTORS – the program was created by female students from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb and Vern University. Their work included regularly viewing the selected films, followed by meetings and joint discussions about the films they had watched and various aspects of the selection process, dilemmas, artistic and social value of the films and their stories, how they fit into the target program, and the logistics of the selection process.
YOUNG JURY – seventh and eighth form primary school pupils from regional schools in Gorski Kotar followed the entire program and participated in the evaluation by discussing the films they had watched during that day.
YOUNG FESTIVAL ORGANIZERS – fourth and fifth form primary school pupils participated in the preparation of the cinema spaces, organisation and counting of audience votes, film announcements, communication with the audience, and promotion of the program on social media.
YOUNG ANIMATORS – two animation workshops were held as part of the Timpetill program, in which first and second form pupils commented on the animated films program intended for the youngest audience, and learned the basics of making animated films. They also learned how to use optical toys as precursors to film and made their own analogue animations.
The European project of the European Network of Film Festivals – Young Programmers for Young Audiences! (Young4Film) is held in coordination with the International Film Festival Kino Otok – Isola Cinema, with the support of the MEDIA sub-program of Creative Europe.
Cinehill’s program for children and youth strives to develop the interest in the wealth of European stories and languages among young audiences, and, since joining the Young4Film project, its aims have only expanded. The program is held prior to Cinehill, as a separate section of the festival, and includes the collaboration with all regional school in Gorski Kotar.
Starting with 2023, its programming is being done by film students from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb and Vern University, as part of the YOUNG PROGRAMMERS workshop. The workshop takes place in the months leading up to the festival, during which the participants regularly view preselected films, followed by weekly meetings and joint discussions about the seen titles. The discussions focus on various aspects of the selection process, dilemmas, artistic and social value of the films and their stories, how they fit into the target program, and the logistics of the selection process. In the end they select the final line-up, which this year included 7 feature and 9 short films from all over Europe, covering fiction, animation and documentary forms and a variety of styles.
In addition to the Young programmers workshop aimed at film students, the festival works to include all school ages in its activities. As part of YOUNG JURY, a group of seventh and eighth form primary school pupils from regional schools in Gorski Kotar followed the entire program and participated in the evaluation by discussing the films they had watched during that day. Through the discussions they learned more about different genres, the cinematic language and how to read it, as well as the importance of contextualising what they’re seeing.
The youngest members of our audience learned more about film through our animation workshop. As part of the workshop, the YOUNG ANIMATORS (first and second form pupils) commented on the animated film program and learned the basics of the moving image and animation. They learned about animated films and how they are created, and were introduced to various optical toys as precursors to film. After a short conversation abou the mechanics of „moving images“, the participants learned different ways of putting the knowledge to practice by using optical toys like a thaumatrope, zoetrope, and flipbook. During the workshop they created their own animations for a zoetrope and found out how to make their own optical toys.
Young Programmers 2024: Marko Bičanić, Katarina Čupić, Oton Fratrić, Ida Kružić, Luka Lipert, Dan Pauletta, Jan Predojević
This year’s line-up, selected by our Young Programmers, brought a diverse selection of feature and short films from all corners of Europe, taking its young audience on various adventures, addressing along the way the problems and topics faced by the youngest members of our society. Among the seven selected feature films, there was a variety of styles and genres, animated, fiction and documentary films, from dramas to comedies, even a musical. Along with feature films, there was a screening of short animated films for preschoolers and first form pupils still too young to follow subtitles.
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