User:Aleksrose/Cinekid Festival

The Cinekid Festival is the largest international film, television and new media festival for children aged 4 to 14 held at the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It started as a small children's film festival and has now grown into a large organisation that develops activities for children in the areas of film, television and new media throughout the year. These activities are presented alongside the festival, whereas the festival itself screens films from all over the world and a selection of the best television programs for youths. It also organises several new media activities. Each year the festival is attended by over 50.000 children, parents and (international) guests.

Cinekid Foundation
The Cinekid Foundation is the organisation behind the festival and accompanying activities. The foundation's goal is to improve the quality of visual culture for children as well as to stimulate children's active and creative participation in the media in order to strengthen their position in relation to the media.

To achieve these goals, Cinekid's core activities include:

1. Festival The Cinekid Film, Television and New Media Festival is the main event each year. It is preceded by a series of school screenings throughout Amsterdam and a satellite program held in 30 cities throughout the Netherlands: Cinekid On Location.

2. Cinekid for Professionals The Cinekid for Professionals Conference is a new addition to Cinekid's activities. The conference has a seminar program and co-production markets where media professionals can view a selection of children's films and television programs.

3. Development and renewal Cinekid focuses on development of the intercultural field defined as Child and Media. This is a central element in Cinekid's core activities and includes trainings, test, knowledge, development and innovation programs.

Media Literacy
Cinekid focuses on media education through broad culture participation. Children from all layers of society are allowed festival participation through leading discussions, voting, creating media productions, talking to industry representatives and (child) actors, joining workshops etc. In order to introduce diverse quality media productions, passive participation included, Cinekid aims to stimulate less accessible genres like child documentaries and cultural interactive media as well.

A tool for this is Cinekid Studio, an interactive environment which allows children to create their own media productions throughout the year. The goal is to improve media consciousness in a playful way. Cinekid Studio is part of the Media Literacy program that Cinekid offers.

The Cinekid Klappers is a children's film canon, a international list of around one hundred films that are considered essential. The list has been compiled by a broad commission of experts and consists of high quality contemporary and older films, for different age groups and with several themes.

Prizes
Cinekid awards prizes in three categories:

Film
 * Cinekid Lion: jury award
 * Cinekid Lion: audience award

Television
 * Cinekid Kinderkast: jury award fiction
 * Cinekid Kinderkast: jury award non-fiction
 * Cinekid Kinderkast: audience award fiction
 * Cinekid Kinderkast: audience award non-fiction
 * Golden Cinekid Kinderkast

New Media
 * Cinekid New Media Award: jury award
 * Cinekid New Media Award: audience award

The 2010 edition of the festival will be the first to award a 'Best Dutch Family Film' prize. The winner will be selected by both a jury and the audience.