Young Programmers from the Young4Film network help shape European film festivals
International Young Programmers of the European film festival network Young Programmers for Young Audiences!—or Young4Film for short—presented two films this summer at the Croatian film festival Cinehill, which took place from July 21 to 26 2026, and thrilled the audience with their selection. The festival also hosted the annual meeting of Young4Film network representatives, which was dedicated to discussing the results of a survey conducted via questionnaires among young programmers and their mentors, as well as to an exchange of views between network representatives and the young programmers.
International Young Programmers Impress at the Cinehill Festival in Croatia
A group of 11 young programmers from Slovenia, Serbia, Lithuania, Italy, Croatia, and Spain—guided through the selection process using the Moving Cinema methodology by mentor Martí Madaula (A Bao A Qu)—put together a film program for the Cinehill Film Festival focused on the theme of sustainability. They selected the films El agua (The Water, Elena López Riera, 2022) and Tóc, Giấy và Nước… (Hair, Paper, Water…, Nicolas Graux, Truong Minh Quy, 2025) and presented them live in Gorski Kotar between July 21 and 26 2026. Both films explore our relationship with the land, and the young selectors believe they complement each other and spark a discussion about memory, heritage preservation, and our connection to place. The International Young Programmers, who travelled to Cinehill for this occasion, introduced the films and shared with the audience, prior to the screenings, interesting insights they had gleaned from conversations with the directors of both films.
Young4Film through the eyes of Young Programmers and their Mentors
As the Young4Film network marked three years since its launch in early 2026, we recognized the need for a comprehensive evaluation of our activities from the perspective of our target groups. Between January and March 2026, we conducted three surveys.
The first targeted 60 Young Programmers from all participating countries, enabling us to collect valuable first-hand insights, compare practices across festivals, and identify opportunities for improvement. The second survey targeted 12 International Young Programmers, who participated in the group in 2025. The third survey was aimed at 10 mentors of the Young Programmers groups to better understand their needs and further adapt our activities accordingly.
Overall, the results of (International) Young Programmers demonstrate a high level of satisfaction with the programme across all participating countries. The highest-rated aspects were consistently related to the mentor’s attitude and expertise, as well as participants’ sense of well-being within the group. Live and hybrid meetings that took place over a longer period of time (more than 3 months) were generally associated with higher satisfaction and stronger perceived impact than fully online and shorter formats.
Young Programmers reported that the participation in the Young Programmers group positively affected their lives (average score of 4.23 out of 5) – the impact being even higher in the International Young Programmers group (4.83 out of 5). The participants also reported the programme positively affected their knowledge of European cinema and European filmmakers. Almost everyone agreed that including young people in programming is important for film festivals and 75 % of participants thought aspects of sustainable development and social awareness should be taken into account in the activities of Young Programmers. Most participants would be willing to take part again, and the vast majority would recommend the experience to their peers.
Word Cloud – What was most memorable about the activities of the international Young Programmers group?
The results of mentors showed that all of the mentors would like to mentor the Young Programmers groups again. The findings show a high level of mentor satisfaction with the Young4Film programme. Mentors evaluated most programme aspects very positively, particularly the selected films, the number of films in the pre-selection phase, the duration of meetings, the sense of well-being within the group, and the public presentation of the selection. Importantly, mentors strongly confirmed the value of including young people in film festival programming, rating this aspect almost unanimously at the highest level. They also reported that mentoring positively influenced their own professional and personal development. While most mentors used the Moving Cinema methodology and Sustainability and Social Awareness Charter for Young Film Audiences in their work with young programmers, we sensed the need for additional mentor training for using these tools. Together, these findings suggest that the Young4Film model offers a highly meaningful framework for film education, youth participation, and cultural engagement.
International Young Programmers with the Young4Film Network representatives
Film Selections by Young Programmers at European Film Festivals
In 2026, the national groups of young programmers have already presented their film selections at the Vilnius Short Film Festival (January), the Beldocs International Documentary Film Festival (May), the Kino Otok – Isola Cinema International Film Festival (June), and Cinehill’s children’s program Timpetill (September). Between 23 and 31 October, young selectors from Spain will present their selections at the Valladolid International Film Week —SEMINCI, and between 7 and 15 November, the film selection by the Italian group of young selectors will be screened at Piccolo Grande Cinema in Milan. You’re invited!
About Young4Film Festival Network
Our aim is to develop young audiences and promote European, especially non-national, films amongst the target groups of primary, secondary and university students. We entrust young programmers with the responsibility of becoming part of the festival teams, while their film programmes and promotional material are shared with young audiences at all the festivals within the network. The selected films are accompanied by original digital educational materials, which are made available to other film curators, film educators and teachers, ensuring that their reach extends beyond the Young4Film network and wider partnership. In addition to the six European film festivals – Kino Otok – Isola Cinema International Film Festival, Beldocs International Documentary Film Festival, Vilnius Short Film Festival, Piccolo Grande Cinema, Cinehill Film Festival and Valladolid International Film Week– Seminci – three cultural organisations working in the field of film education are also involved in the network’s activities: A Bao A Qu (Barcelona, Spain), Meno Avilys (Vilnius, Lithuania) and Kijufi (Berlin, Germany).
Our collaborative approach is based on the original Moving Cinema methodology, which has been developed since 2014 by the team of the Catalan organisation A Bao A Qu in collaboration with several international partners, with the aim of developing active young film audiences. It is precisely this past collaboration that has given us a shared understanding of the importance of developing young audiences and we will further build on our efforts in this area by considering the issues of sustainability, environmental awareness, balanced gender representation, inclusion, diversity and representativity.
The European project Young Programmers for Young Audiences! European Film Festival Network is coordinated by Kino Otok – Isola Cinema International Film Festival with the support of Creative Europe MEDIA and the Ministry of the Interior and Public Administration of the Republic of Slovenia.