Sharing the love of cinema, inspiring young film enthusiasts to watch quality films, learning the language of the 7th Art, encouraging artistic creation.
Film festivals only take place over a few days and unfortunately too few children have access to them, but they are a wonderful source of information for finding a film for children, as well as audiovisual production companies, animation schools and directors who offer the possibility of watching their films for free online.
Many film festivals are dedicated to children — feature film festivals, short film festivals, animation film festivals, competitive or non-competitive.
© Christophe Defaye. International Children's Film Festival in Busan.
Some are very large like Chicago or New York with over 30,000 visitors a year, others are much smaller with just a few hundred, but all share the same wonderful mission: showing quality films to children.
Discovering and sharing new masterpieces
In order to keep abreast of international children's film festivals, we have created a database of children's film festivals.a database on children's film festivals
Very useful for directors and festival directors we are in contact with. It allows us to understand the editorial policy of each festival and, of course, to unearth new masterpieces.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of French-language film festivals.
List in alphabetical order.
Location and date : Haute-Savoie department, June
Founded : 1960.
Visitors : 120 000
Awards : Crystal for feature film, short film and graduation film. Jury prize, audience award and many special prizes. Since 2017, young audience prize and junior jury prize.
Description : A world reference for animation cinema, the Annecy festival grew out of a meeting between a Haute-Savoie film club and the JICA (International Animation Film Days), which had taken place since 1956 alongside the Cannes Film Festival. The JICA moved to Annecy in 1960 and eventually became the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. The MIFA (International Animation Film Market), created in 1986, takes place during festival week.
Location and date : Alpes-Maritimes department, October
Founded : 2018
Description : The Cabrioles festival in Alpes-Maritimes, organised by the Ciné-Cabris association, offers children aged 3 to 10 animated films for young audiences, workshops, exhibitions and cinema snack sessions.
Location and date : Aisne department, March–April
Founded : 1983
Visitors : 40 000
Awards : Grand Prix Ciné Junior, Prix CICAE, Prix du Grain à démoudre, Prix des Collégiens, Prix du public.
Description : The Ciné-Jeune festival of Aisne, the first young-audience film festival created in France, takes place in Saint-Quentin and 25 other venues across the Aisne department. The Cine-Jeune association, whose aim is to promote quality cinema for children, organises media education activities in schools and other institutions serving young people.
Location and date : Val-de-Marne department, February
Founded : 1990
Visitors : 25 000
Awards : Grand Prix Ciné Junior, Prix CICAE, Prix du Grain à démoudre, Prix des Collégiens, Prix du public.
Description : The Cine Junior festival, organised by the Cinéma Public association, allows children and teenagers in Val-de-Marne to discover quality French and foreign films, with the aim of awakening the artistic sensibilities of young audiences. The festival publishes educational dossiers offering teachers topics for reflection.
Founded : 1979. A children's section was created in 2015.
Location and date : February
Visitors : 100,000 including 35,000 children
Description : The Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival is the world's largest cinema festival dedicated to short films. In terms of audience and professional attendance, it is the second-largest French film festival after Cannes. In 2015, a Young Audience competition was held for the first time. Cannes Film Festival.
Location and date : Normandy, November
Founded : 2000
Description : The association's main mission is media education for young audiences. The Du Grain à démoudre cinema festival, whose programming is entrusted to 30 young volunteers aged 12 to 25, takes place in Gonfreville l'Orcher, Le Havre and Harfleur.
Location and date : Lans-en-Vercors, December
Founded : 1987
Description : Jeunes Bobines is a young-audience cinema event offering a selection of films featuring characters played by children.
Location and date : Seine-et-Marne, January to May
Founded : 1993
Visitors : 30 000
Description : L'enfant et le 7e art is an itinerant festival spread across 18 towns in Seine-et-Marne. Organised by the Aux 4 coins de l'enfance association, the festival initiates cinema events to give young viewers a taste for cinema that is lively, creative, sometimes demanding and often different, inviting them to open up to the world, its cultures and its differences. Targeting schoolchildren, middle-school and high-school students, it offers a selection of animated films, fiction and documentaries, along with educational dossiers.
Location and date : Paris, October
Founded : 2002
Visitors : 16 000
Awards : Prix des Classes Jury, Prix du Jury Professionnel, Prix du Public, Special Mention.
Description : Initiated by the Paris city council and produced by the Enfances au Cinéma association, Mon Premier festival takes place every year in Paris during the All Saints' school holidays. Dedicated to young audiences from age 2, its aim is to awaken the youngest children's curiosity for the 7th art through a playful and educational approach to cinema.
Location and date : La Bourboule, June
Founded : 2002
Visitors : 16 000
Description : The Plein la bobine association's goal — both during the festival and throughout the school year — is to promote quality films in order to awaken the artistic curiosity of children and young adults. During the festival, educational materials for teachers allow for playful work with children after screenings.
Location and date : Biarritz, October
Founded : 2013
Description : The festival's commitment, in the spirit of an educational platform, is to guide children in the production and reception of images, teaching them to speak and read this specific yet universal language.
Location and date : Online, March–June
Founded : 2020
Visitors : 350 000
Awards : Children's Award.
Description : The Films pour enfants association created the Takorama festival under UNESCO patronage during the 2020 lockdown, enabling children to stay in touch with teachers and discover cultural diversity through universal messages such as humanism, ecology and poetry. The high participation in 2020 led this one-off event to become annual. The festival, aimed at teachers and their students, is entirely free. Each teacher enrols their class and offers students educational activities following the film screenings. In a positive spirit, each child votes for their favourite film, shares their opinion and connects with others.
Do you organise a children's film festival? Do you know of a festival dedicated to young audiences that we haven't listed? Share the information!