Festival Data:

• Established: 1978
• Genre: Children (click to see)
• Attendance: 35000
• Media Attendance: 3600
• Accreditations: CIJEF, FIAPF

• Competitive
• Film Market
• Online Festival
• Has Panels

Festival Website:

Festival Description:

Since 1978, the Berlinale has dedicated a special section to films, which see the world from the point of view of children and young people: Generation. The section began as the Kinderfilmfest and has been complimented by the youth film competition 14plus since the Berlinale 2004. The section was renamed for the Berlinale 2007 in order to do justice to its specific programme structure. The section’s competitions are now known as Generation Kplus and Generation 14plus.

Every year, the Berlinale awards three Crystal Bears to the best films of the section. In the Generation Kplus competition, the winners are selected by an eleven-member Children’s Jury. The seven jurors of the Youth Jury award the Crystal Bears for the best feature films of the Generation 14plus competition. In addition, an international expert jury awards the Grand Prix of the Deutsche Kinderhilfswerk (German Child Support Organisation) worth 7,500 Euros to the best feature film in the klpus competition. The Special Prize of the charity, which has a value of 2,500 Euros, is awarded to the best short film in Kplus.

Generation is not just a platform for a flourishing segment of the film industry and its films, but attracts a very diverse audience. Every year, more than 35,000 moviegoers attend the screenings. In the cinemas, professional guests, directors and actors meet up with children and young people of every age group. These encounters contribute to the special appeal of the section. Both praise and criticism for the films are expressed during moderated discussions in the cinemas immediately after the screenings, making a visit to this section a unique experience for audiences of all generations.

Generation stands for a broader understanding of films for children and young people. Alongside high-quality children’s or youth films, the programme contains productions that have their own appeal for younger viewers, without having been specifically conceived for this target audience. With a programme that consciously and passionately presents films from diverse backgrounds, Generation encourages the film industry to shed its fear of young audiences. Since 2006, another way the festival has tackled this issue is with its special Cross Section screenings, which make selected films from other sections accessible to children and young people by showing them out of competition in the framework of the Generation section.

The section has been directed by Thomas Hailer since October 2002.