Breakthrough for Flemish young audience documentaries

VAF, the Flemish Audio-visual Fund, in cooperation with JEF and the national children’s TV channel Ketnet, has launched an initiative that could cause a major breakthrough for young audience documentaries in Belgium. A call was addressed to producers and filmmakers to apply for a series of training workshops and production funding, granting €40,000 to five young audience documentaries. For many years JEF has presented the case that a children’s documentary tradition in Flanders was possible, if only the right formula and resources were found. These needs now seem to be fulfilled, with concrete production on the horizon.

Photos Si-G

The current call from VAF – with training courses, financial support and a guaranteed interest from a public broadcaster – is inspired by the ‘Kids & Docs’ model (initiated by IDFA and Cinekid), that was the foundation of the Dutch youth documentary boom. The five documentaries will premiere at the JEF festival in 2020 and will then be taken in distribution. JEF will find creative ways to present these films to a large audience in cinemas and in schools. This should lay a solid foundation for a wonderful new tradition.

The call by VAF (in Flemish) can be found here.