European Children's
Film Association
Association Européenne du Cinéma
pour l'Enfance et la Jeunesse
Surely we are all convinced that films are the perfect tool for discussing delicate issues with young people? If there is currently one film out there that meets that recommendation, it must be LIVING LARGE (by Kristina Dufkova), which tackles – besides the main issue of eating disorders – many tricky topics. This, according to the producers, called for a study guide, written by experts.
Continue reading “Experts write study guide on LIVING LARGE”
Both the 12th Young Horizons Int’l Film Festival (26 September – 5 October) and 9th Young Horizons Industry Int’l Co-Production Forum (28 September – 1 October) have opened a call for films and projects.
Continue reading “Young Horizons looking for films and projects”
Whether FLOW is actually a children’s film or not, no one can tell you. Certainly not Latvian director Gints Zilbalodis. But its status as a phenomenon is abundantly clear, and the film’s success has an impact on the entire European animation industry, and therefore – indirectly – on the children’s film landscape as well. Dita Rietuma, head of the Latvian Film Centre, can only confirm.
Rarely could you see four different continents represented on one jury in a children’s film festival. The Montreal Int’l Children’s Film Festival (FIFEM) succeeded in doing just that for its 28th edition.
In 2023, ECFA organised the inaugural Workshop Warehouse event, in collaboration with the Cineteca di Bologna. As one of the participants described, the event was “a wonderful chance to learn from practitioners around Europe and come home with lots of practical ideas to use in my own work. A chance to further my professional network and possibly forge collaborations”.
The Workshop Warehouse 2025 is organised by the European Children’s Film Association and the Cineteca di Bologna, in collaboration with the “Screen the Future” European Children’s Film Festival Network. Co-funded by the European Union, this edition will take place June 27-29, 2025, in Bologna, Italy.
Registration is open until March 15th. To ensure the best workshop experience, places are limited – therefore: don’t hesitate and fill in the form now!
Additional information on the selected workshops is available below:
The ‘Young Film Describers’ project focuses on creating audio descriptions for short documentary films with young people. Our approach involves engaging young participants in discussions about what they see in a film, enabling them to articulate and describe those images in words. While particularly beneficial for blind and visually impaired students, the project is equally valuable for sighted participants and diverse groups. In today’s visually dominated culture, the ability to describe and evaluate images is crucial, especially for young people heavily engaged with social media. Therefore, this workshop format is applicable to various educational settings that aim to develop observation and critical discussion skills around film.
This format was developed in collaboration with special schools for visually impaired students, the true experts in audio descriptions. Through three to five workshops, we’ve worked with various age groups, focusing on listening to and viewing documentary films. Together, we’ve created short descriptive texts of the films’ visual elements during non-dialogue sections. All participants have the opportunity to narrate their own audio descriptions, which may be published in partnership with an educational distributor.
For the Bologna workshop, we will condense these three to five workshop days (depending on age and daily hours) into 120 minutes. This will involve working with six groups, each developing a 2.5-minute audio description for a scene from a short documentary film.
The ‘Young Film Describers’ project is designed to engage participants of varying ages, with workshop content and activities tailored to the developmental stages and interests of each group. For the Bologna workshop, we will present a format specifically designed for children aged 11 and above. While the project has a particular focus on blind and visually impaired students, it offers equal value to participants without visual impairments and to diverse groups.
DOXS RUHR // Freunde der Realität e.V., Bochum, Germany
The ‘Liquid in Motion’ workshop is a unique and creative initiative that combines traditional art, science, and stop-motion animation. Participants use stop-motion to capture the dynamic marbling process, creating vibrant, abstract images in motion. Marbling (ebru) is a Turkish technique where oil-based paints are dripped onto a thickened water surface. In this workshop, we substitute food coloring and high-fat milk. Typically, the ebru patterns are transferred to paper, but we photograph them to create a stop-motion animation. In a single session, hundreds of images can be produced, combining to form an abstract story of shifting colors and shapes.
Interdisciplinary Nature: The workshop integrates film, art, and science, exploring questions such as:
In Art:
In Film Production:
In Science:
The ‘Liquid in Motion’ workshops are captivating for all ages, from young children to adults. The vibrant colors and ever-changing patterns on the liquid surface, which we only partially control, provide long-lasting engagement and surprise. These sensory-friendly and inclusive workshops require no prior artistic skills. Each participant creates a unique animation, which, with a soundtrack, becomes a memorable souvenir of their new experience and knowledge.
The workshop is designed for participants aged 7 and above, with no upper age limit. Its versatility and diverse range of activities ensure it will be engaging for children from age 7, as well as for teenagers and adults. There is something of interest for everyone, regardless of age.
Young Horizons, Warsaw, Poland
At JEF, we love experimenting and are always looking for new technologies and tools to get children and young people excited about film and games. Through active assignments, children discover the basics of filmmaking with a little help from AI. With the rapid advancements in AI and the increasing variety of tools being used in the film industry, we are giving this workshop a modern makeover. We will investigate with the children how we can implement AI in the filmmaking process without losing their creative input.
10-12 years old
JEF, Antwerp, Belgium
This workshop aims to draw children’s attention to sound in cinema and how to tell stories using the sound of paper. The workshop explores the sounds made by different kinds of paper and what they remind us of. For example, crumpling kraft paper can sound like footsteps on dry leaves, while tapping baking paper can sound like raindrops. Connecting to the tactile audiobook Dans les bois (In the Woods) by Laura Cattabianchi, the workshop helps children discover the sound dimension of stories, whether written or drawn. By exploring the tactile and sound power of paper, participants can experience storytelling through sound and create their own stories to touch, listen to, and take home!
4-6 years old and 7-11 years old
Enfances au Cinéma, Paris, France
This workshop, which pays homage to the great artist Nam June Paik, will provide participants with a hands-on filmmaking experience. Participants will create short experimental films by painting with light and adding live sound through videophony.
The workshop will begin by raising awareness among participants about the dynamics and rhythm of sound and movement. Through practical exercises, participants will learn how to control these dynamics and rhythms, either by producing sounds independently or by using instruments and objects that create sound vibrations. This process will be repeated through movement and motion.
Once participants have mastered the basic exercise, they will learn about videophony. Videophony, like microphony, is a system “glitch”, but it can be used creatively to produce images and films. For this light experiment, a video camera will be connected directly to a video projector, and the angle at which it records the illuminated projector screen will be adjusted. This setup allows the camera and video projector to record or “watch” each other, creating image distortion and interesting color nuances.
Participants will then experiment by moving objects in front of the camera or video projector, thus creating captivating video scenes that multiply in this infinite image. Throughout the workshop, participants can create multiple film works with different sound and musical atmospheres, resulting in different stories or narratives.
Once participants are familiar with the “language” of experimental film, they will add sounds produced by various vibrational means, sound-producing machines, or musical instruments to the action and object dance in front of the camera/video projector. Participants can be divided into several groups, which will separately prepare their final products in the same or different rooms. This final process will be recorded and will become the final artifact of the workshop.
This workshop is designed for children and youth ages 7 to 14.
Shadow Casters/Bacači sjenki (Frooom! film school for children and youth), Zagreb, Croatia
Linfraviolet focuses on a new audience: children aged one to five years old, through animated films and immersive workshops. For our latest show, “Cine-dance: Rounds and Bubbles,” we developed a unique kit to explore four different animated movies. This kit includes balloons, bubbles, books, a thaumatrope, a zoetrope with a jam jar, lights, sun puppets, and instructions for using these materials in connection with the four films.
The instructions are divided into three modules:
The workshop is short and immersive for children, using only a wall or fabric found in the kindergarten instead of a screen. We watch the short film, play with the colors and movements from the film, and create a collective atmosphere with lights and movements related to the movie. This workshop and kit are included in regional and national training for “kindergarten at the cinema” and day nursery courses.
up to 2 years old (2-6 years old)
Céline Ravenel (artist) & Milena Gilabert (dancer)
Linfraviolet, France
Make Some Noise’ introduces children to the experimental world of sound design and live foley techniques in filmmaking through fun, playful experimentation and hands-on creative activities. During the workshop each participant can play and experiment with sound effects contraptions specially built for the event inspired by 1930s Disney’s Sound Effects department and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. They will also be encouraged to make their own sound effects toys including a rainstick from a cardboard tube and rice and a kazoo squeaker with elastic bands and lolly sticks. At the end of the workshop everyone is invited to participate in a live foley play-along to Disney’s Silly Symphonies: The Old Mill (1937) and recreate the sounds of rain, wind, owls, lighting, thunder with their own hand-made sound effect toys.
6-12 years old
The workshop will be delivered by Saskia Van Roomen and Laura Kloss from Small World Cinema.
Saskia Van Roomen is the London Film School Outreach Manager and an Into Film Ambassador
Laura Kloss has also been delivering creative film workshops for over 10 years under as Lightbox Projects, lightboxcinema.blog, and is the London Screen Archives Manager at Film London.
Small World Cinema, London, UK
Step into the world of film, literally, and see if you can catch the little film-ghost floating through the room. At Taartrovers, it’s all about play, wonder, experimenting and imagination. In this workshop children can create, discover, and play with their own stories. In Catching little light-ghosts, children literally step into the film, discovering the magic this lovely storytelling medium has.
Up to 6 years old
Taartrovers, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Ket & Doc has become a well-known phenomenon: a new batch of five (only four, from next year) Belgian short documentaries for young audiences every year, made with the support of public broadcaster Ketnet and the Flemish Audiovisual Fund. 2025 guarantees a new crop that has just premiered at the Youth Film Festival Antwerp in the presence of all directors and protagonists.
On Saturday February 15th Europe’s leading children’s film organisation ECFA announced the winners of the three annual ECFA Awards for Best European Children’s Film, Best European Children’s Documentary and Best European Children’s Short Film. Winner of the prestigious Best Film Award was LARS IS LOL (by Eirik Sæter Stordahl, Norway), the Documentary Award went to TODD & SUPER-STELLA (by Mari Monrad Vistven, Norway), and the Short Film Award was taken home by YUCK! (by Loïc Espuche, France). Awards were handed out in Berlin during the Berlinale, in a festive ceremony, celebrated with the international young audience film community.
Continue reading “ECFA Awards taken home to Norway (2!) & France”
