The Creative Europe Media programme supports audience development by connecting European audiovisual works with their audiences across Europe and beyond. Since 2019, the programme launches every two years a call for proposals to support networks of audiovisual festivals to carry out collaborative projects.
Following the call for proposals launched in 2022, 12 networks of audiovisual festivals have been selected to carry out collaborative projects in 2023 and 2024. In total networks will involve 71 film festivals, covering 26 countries across Europe. Each network is coordinated by a festival from a different country.
These are the selected projects...
Young Programmers for Young Audiences! European Film Festival Network
The project aims to overturn a common film festival practice, where young audience programme curation is done exclusively by adults, by actively including young people in the creation of five established international film festivals as Young Programmers as co-curators. The project includes collaborative activities for young audience development, onsite and online circulation of European films, as well as research and design of open-source Sustainability and Social Awareness Charter for Young Film Audiences.
Members: Kino Otok – Isola Cinema International Film Festival (Slovenia) as coordinator, International Documentary FilmFestival Beldocs (Serbia), Vilnius International Short Film Festival (Lithuania), Piccolo Grande Cinema (Italy), Motovun Film Festival (Croatia).
Festival Network Moving Images – Open Borders
Launched in 2017, the network awards two prizes (MIOB in Shorts and New Vision MIOB Award), organises joint film programmes, and supports the circulation of guests and festival teams. It also organises workshops for its members on management topics (marketing, communication, programming, gender equality, sustainability), and for industry professionals and young audiences. Additionally, it produces studies (Audience Survey, Lab Femmes de Cinema study) and develops digital tools (Green Charter).
Members: European Film Forum Scanorama (Lithuania) as coordinator, Les Arcs Film Festival (France), Seville European Film Festival (Spain), Trieste Film Festival (Italy), Crossing Europe Filmfestival (Austria), European Film Festival Palić (Serbia), Filmfestival Cottbus (Germany).
European Short Film Audience Award
The network aims to expand short films audiences and raise interest in European audiovisual work through a one-year tour of screenings. During the tour, local audiences can vote for their favourite short film and at the end of the tour, the winning film is awarded with the European Short Film Audience Award.
Members: Brussels Short Film Festival (Belgium) as coordinator, Short Waves Festival (Poland), interfilmBerlin (Germany), Go Short (The Netherlands), Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival (France), Curtas Vila do Conde (Portugal), Tampere Film Festival (Finland).
Network of the Festivals in the Adriatic Region
The network was launched in 2020 to formalise the members’ past collaborations and better face the challenges brought about by the pandemic. With the mission to promote and circulate European audio-visual content and talent, the network seeks to cultivate new audiences and to raise the overall organisational and operational capacities of its partners by introducing the latest technological advances.
Members: Sarajevo Film Festival (Bosnia and Herzegovina) as coordinator, Zagreb Film Festival (Croatia), Auteur Film Festival (Serbia), Montenegro Film Festival (Montenegro), Ljubljana International Film Festival (SIovenia).
European Short Film Network
The network started in 2018 with the ambition of using technological developments and a collaborative approach to make the European short film festival landscape better known, resilient and sustainable. The grant will support the development of the network’s joint streaming platform for European short films thisisshort.eu launched in 2021, to strengthen the network in the area of knowledge transfer and to expand the network with additional partners.
Members: Vienna Shorts (Austria) as coordinator, Go Short (The Netherlands), Short Film Festival Oberhausen (Germany), Short Waves Festival (Poland), IndieLisboa (Portugal), Uppsala KortFilmFestival (Sweden).
European Children Film Festivals Network
The grant will support the research and development of children and youth’s participation to the planning of festival activities, the creation of a systematic toolset for pupils and teachers in Europe, and the dissemination of the results of the network’s activities to other interested parties around the EU.
Members: International Film Festival for Children and Young People (Greece) as coordinator, JEF (Belgium), Schlingel International Film Festival (Germany), Kids Kino International Film Festival (Poland), Zlin International Film Festival (Czechia), Cinekid (The Netherlands), Cinemira (Hungary)
Animation Festival Network
The network is formed by festivals dedicated to auteur animated films for young and adult audiences. Founded in 2020, it is an organic extension of the partners´ previous collaborations and aims to help them achieve common goals: to promote auteur animation, improve audience outreach and strengthen capacities through the exchange of good practices and experiences.
Members : Animafest Zagreb (Croatia) as coordinator, Anifilm International Festival of Animated Films (Czechia), Fest Anča International Animation Festival (Slovakia), Animest International Animation Film Festival (Romania), Animateka International Animated Film Festival (Slovenia)
Doc Alliance Festival Network
Gathering festivals specialised in documentary cinema since 2008, Doc Alliance currently operates the Doc Alliance Films VOD portal and awards the Doc Alliance Selection Award for short and feature documentaries during the Marché du Film Docu Day event in Cannes. The grant will support the programming of the selected and awarded works by the members, and knowledge-sharing activities such as meetings, publication of materials, collaborations with other festivals via a new open call.
Members: Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival (Czechia) as coordinator, CPH:DOX Copenhagen International Documentary Festival (Denmark), Doclisboa (Portugal), DOK Leipzig (Germany), Marseille Festival of Documentary Film (France), Millennium Docs Against Gravity (Poland)
SMART7 – a network of European fresh visions and team empowerment
The grant will support four knowledge-sharing workshops among members about programming and audience development, sponsoring and fund-raising, promotion and sales, sustainability and green practices. It will also fund a collaborative and coordinated programming activity of art-house films that do not have sales agents from low production capacity countries, as well as young audience development activities by engaging university students from all seven countries in jury deliberations.
Members: New Horizons International Film Festival (Poland) as coordinator, FilMadrid (Spain), Thessaloniki International Film Festival (Greece), IndieLisboa (Portugal), Vilnius International Film Festival KINO PAVASARIS (Lithuania), Reykjavík International Film Festival (Iceland), Transilvania International Film Festival (Romania)
NoJSe 2022-2023. Network of the Nordic Children's Film Festivals
The grant will support the distribution of children and youth films produced in the Nordic region with an annual New Nordic shorts and feature film program consisting of 12 titles per year, educational materials, and strong distribution via the educational platform “The Nordics in the School”. It will also fund industry activities such as a Think Tank and a Children's Media Conference on children's Media, an annual workshop, and a yearly presentation of findings within the NoJSe network at the yearly ECFA meeting during the Berlinale.
Members: Buster Copenhagen International Film Festival for Children (Denmark) as coordinator, Oulu International Children's Film Festival (Finland), BUFF International Film Festival (Sweden), Reykjavík International Film Festival (Iceland), Bergen International Film Festival (Norway).
DOC AROUND EUROPE GENERATION
DOC AROUND EUROPE GENERATION is the new project fostered by the documentary festival network DOC AROUND EUROPE. Its objective is to enlighten, inspire and propel the Documentary European Emerging Talents by fostering their circulation across Europe and internationally, building audience awareness and access to their works, particularly among young communities and motivating their professional growth and strengthening their connection with the industry and their peers.
Members: DocsBarcelona International Documentary Film Festival (Spain) as coordinator, Munich International Documentary Film Festival (Germany), FIPADOC (France), MakeDox – Creative Documentary Film Festival (North Macedonia), Verzió – International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival (Hungary).
European Network of Film Discourse
The END network, initiated by FILMFEST DRESDEN and VIENNA SHORTS back in 2017 and finally fleshed out and expanded in 2019, consists of an active core and is related to a larger circle of film festivals. The grant will support the promotion of a critical film discourse by and for a younger generation, to introduce new audiences to a flourishing European film landscape, and to build communities through a variety of activities.
Members: Filmfest Dresden (Germany) as coordinator, Leuven International Short Film (Belgium), Vilnius International Short Film Festivals (Lithuania), FeKK – Ljubljana Short Film Festival (Slovenia), Lago Film Fest (Italy).