Cinema in Sneakers Film Festival for Children and Youth

Cinema in Sneakers – a fresh and buzzing project – is organised by Cinemania Foundation. We started off in 2013 with big hopes and enthusiasm that only crazy, uncontrollable film buffs have. The idea to create a film festival for kids was influenced by Janusz Korczak’s credo : “There are no children as such – only people; but people with different experiences, different drives and different reactions.” And these people have the right to watch a wide array of films: about varied cultures, problems, made with diverse styles, but made with respect to kids. Everything started with THE NEED. Having worked in the film industry for over a decade, we noticed this big, gaping hole that exists in the Polish market of the cinematic productions for kids and youth. One that has grown over the years and one that our generation has luckily escaped. We were given films that helped us develop as people, characters that we could compare to; that mirrored our reality; films that were made for us and about us. We felt that the contemporary youth was being deprived of that. From the very beginning we wanted to give the kids the room to roam, so we commenced the festival competitions with children and youth juries, where The Main Prize is “THE SNEAKERS”. We recruited teenagers to the Youth Programming Group who decide on the final selection to Youth Films Competition. Besides the competitions, we also present films in the following sections: Childhood Enchantments – films that amazed our special guests when they were children; Focus on Docs; Icons of Pop Culture, where we celebrate famous film characters and analyze why they became pop-culture icons; Digital Poland for Kids – Polish reconstructed films made for children and Cinema in Sneakers - Naturally! One of the Festival’s goals is to act as a forum, where experiences and knowledge in regards to a young person’s problems in the contemporary world can be exchanged. It highlights the importance of having the access to diverse cinematic titles targeting a given age group, and presents it as an invaluable part of the of a balanced and virtuous young person’s development.