Aims

Films form an essential part of the concept of cultural diversity and, furthermore, valuable means in terms of media literacy and cultural and personal education. Children are the audience of today and tomorrow, they critically question their world they live in through stories with convincing characters. They have a right to see films told from their perspective, films that entertain and also tell them something about life, but always take them seriously.

The need for original stories grows when children’s films are doing better in the market. While the thriving films are usually spin-offs of famous books, they do not automatically increase diversity. Market pressure suppresses a sufficient national and especially international exploitation of these films and hence impairs conditions for financing and developing.

KIDS Regio dedicates its campaigns to ensure that children in Europe have access to and a wider choice of highest quality films.

KIDS Regio acts on the principals of the Erfurt Declaration from 2009, the recommenations captured at the KIDS Regio Forum 2014 and of the Weimar Declaration from 2019 articulated by 80 media professionals from 24 countries working within different fields of activities in the children’s film industry:

• Offer children an access to and a wider variety of stories, genres and styles in films
• enable films for children to become more visible and more successful and a natural, self-evident part of the European film culture and industry
• reach public and political awareness of films made for children as well as the understanding of the value and the issues arising from it
• include cinema and Media Literacy to become part of the school curriculum in Europe