The tickets for Young Horizons IFF are up for grabs now. The 10th edition of the Young Horizons International Festival, organised by the New Horizons Association, will take place in a hybrid format again. The films from the festival programme, addressed to both children and teenagers, will be screened from 30 September to 8 October in cinemas in 20 towns and cities across Poland, and on our online VOD platform from 12 to 29 October.

The 10th edition of the festival includes 167 unique titles. This year, the festival will open with two films. The first one is the witty animation Epic Tails (5–10; dir. David Alaux; France 2023) addressed to the youngest viewers. For a little older audience, we have another great film: the legendary Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron (12–∞; Japan 2023). The film has already been dubbed a masterpiece. Both films are premiering in Poland at the festival. The event will be crowned with the award gala and a screening of unique and delightful cut-out animations with live music: Lotte Reiniger’s Fairy Tales (6–∞; dir. Lotte Reiniger; Great Britain 1954).

The programme in a nutshell

The short and full-length live-action films, animations, and documentaries selected by us for viewers aged 3+ have been arranged into 13 sections this year, each of them different in terms of themes and genres.

As part of the Main Competition, you will be able to see the most interesting productions from Poland and abroad, out of which the jury and the audience will vote for the best film. The jury will also assess the films in the Documentary Competition and Discoveries Competition.

We’ll take you to the far North in the section titled Between the Fjords – Films from Norway and Iceland. We’ll also travel to the banks of the Seine with the Bonjour Cinéma! – French Animation section. In the Green Fingers section, we’ll focus on the themes of environmental protection and education. The lovers of Short Stories will surely enjoy the section under this name, and all the bookworms will be able to have their Heads in the Books thanks to the amazing book adaptations. Cinema gourmets will be served delicious productions in the Bon Appetit! section. As part of Our Classics and Festival Favourites, we will present films that have been awarded by the jurors and loved by the audiences in previous years. If you wish to celebrate our round anniversary together with us, join the special We’re 10! – Anniversary Selection. Last but not least, there’s a section of New Horizons – for the grown-ups accompanying the young viewers. These are unique films about cross-generational relationships selected from the program of this year’s mBank New Horizons Festival. To make our event more accessible, the programme includes sensory-friendly screenings and screenings with audio description.

We know that our screenings give a boost of creative energy to the young viewers. This year, just like in previous seasons, we’ve made sure that this energy finds a constructive outlet and we’ve organised a number of attractive accompanying events. We’ve invited artists and experts to craft some creative activities: kids and teens can choose from ladybird house building, comic book drawing, or paper marbling (ebru) workshops. The festival programme is also filled with meetings with filmmakers and actors, introductions to screenings prepared by educators, and plenty of online resources. Tech enthusiasts will enjoy our MediaLab – a digital playground where you can learn more about the world of film, games, and virtual reality.

We have also developed a series of discussions following the screenings from the New Horizons section. On 19 September, the series will open in Kino Muranów, after the screening of The Quiet Girl (16–∞; dir. Colm Bairéad; Ireland 2022). The film will be followed by a meeting with Natalia de Barbaro, a psychologist and author of the bestselling books Czuła przewodniczka and Przędza. After the screening of Totem 16–∞; dir. Lila Avilés; Mexico, Denmark, France 2023), we will talk to Anja Franczak, the founder of the Institute of the Good Death (2 October, Kino Muranów). The follow-up to Monster (16–∞; dir. Hirokazu Koreeda; Japan 2023) will be a meeting with Joanna Szulc – a journalist with a background in sociology and sociology, expert editor at the child and teenager editions of the Newsweek Psychologia magazine, author of books for parents (5 October, Kinoteka).