What would it take to sensitize both established media and more modern platforms like podcasts, blogs, and fan forums to children’s and young people’s films? Is it the films themselves that need to change, or is it our attitude towards them? A panel discussion will be held at the invitation of ECFA, the German Film Critics Association (VdFk), and Berlin Critics’ Week. Film critics and writers from diverse media formats will discuss critical perspectives on the varied production of children’s & youth films.
The digital media shift is causing the traditional ‘beacons’ of art house reporting to falter. Films for a young audience are particularly affected, as they were already primarily perceived and discussed in educational niches in the era of print journalism. While audience development, film education and fan discourses are flourishing, the space for independent film criticism outside the festival bubbles is dwindling.
At the same time, new media and journalistic spaces are emerging, in which even outstanding children’s & youth films still have to find their place. So what is needed to sensitize established media and modern platforms such as podcasts, blogs and fan forums to children’s & youth films? Do the films themselves need to change, or rather our attitude towards them?
A panel discussion at the invitation of ECFA, the German Film Critics‘ Association (VdFk) and Berlin Critics’ Week. Film critics and publicists from various media formats will discuss with Axel Timo Purr (VdFk) from a critics’ point of view the diverse children’s & youth film production.
Programme:
Welcome: Gudrun Sommer (ECFA/DOXS RUHR) & Pantelis Panteloglou (ECFA/Olympia Int’l Film Festival for Children & Young People)
Panel:
Axel Timo Purr (VdFk/artechock.de, GE)
Savina Petkova (film critic, editor for Talking Shorts, UK)
Yun-hua Chen (film scholar, curator/VdFk, GE)
Sebastian Markt (Berlinale Generation/VdFk, GE)
NO NEED FOR A LONG READ?
Film critics’ perspectives on the children’s & youth film landscape
17 / 2 / 2025 @ 5. p.m. – 6.15 p.m.
Hackesche Höfe Cinema
Rosenthaler Str. 40 -41
10178 Berlin
Free entrance