Nhi Le is a journalist, host and public speaker from Leipzig, Germany. In her work, Le primarily engages the topics of feminism and contemporary media and digital media culture. Le writes the column “The Female Gaze” for jetzt.de/Süddeutsche Zeitung where she analyzes media culture and pop cultural phenomena such as diversity in the German TV landscape or the depiction of female friendships in media from a feminist, anti-racist perspective.

As a host, Le has worked for several German national public television broadcasters such as ZDF or MDR, the Sarajevo Film Festival as well as a variety of panel discussions.

Jacqueline works as desk officer in the department of family affairs at the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth.

Before joining the Federal Ministry Jacqueline was teaching and researching Gerontology and Sociology of Age at the University of Vechta in Germany.

She studied in Potsdam and Turin and holds a degree in sociology.

Her favourite topics are the development and role of families in societies, family policy, the link between values, attitudes and family policy and statistics and data associated with these topics.

Margret is project manager at the German Children’s Film Association (Academy for Children’s Media, Outstanding Films for Children, Formats from Thuringia).

She studied in Göttingen, Berkeley and Babelsberg and holds degrees in English and German Literature as well as in Media Studies.

Her passion is the fantastic genres, the extraordinary and – of course – media for children.From 1996 to 2016 she has been CEO of the German Children’s Media Foundation GOLDENER SPATZ and director of the Media Festival of the same name.

Margret is a regular member of various juries (e.g. Grimme Award), is giving lectures and works as a journalist. Since 2017 she is also president of the European Children’s Film Association (ECFA).

Studies of Visual Communication at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and Escola de Disseny i Art Barcelona. Since 2007 specialized in script development and dramaturgy of content for young audiences, film and theatre workshops with children and young adults. Alumni of EAVE Marketing Workshop. Member of the curating jury for youth content at „Golden Sparrow“ Media Festival and jury member at FBW Deutsche Film- und Medienbewertung (German federal authority for evaluating and rating film & media). Since 2013 project coordinator of “Outstanding Films for Children”. Lives in Weimar with two kids, her husband and an old cat.

Dr. Astrid Plenk studied Educational Science, Psychology and Sociology at Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg.

She finished her PhD on the Quality of Children’s Programmes at University of Kassel.

Before joining MDR in 2010 as Head of Children & Family Issues, she worked at Universal Studios Networks, Internationales Zentralinstitut für das Jugend und Bildungsfernsehen (IZI) and RTL2.

She serves as executive board member at Kuratorium junger deutscher Film.Since January 2018 she is the Managing and Programming Director ofKiKAof ARD and ZDF.

Hanan (28) is an inclusive strategist and the founder of Inclusify. After graduating in 2015 with a Master’s degree in Strategic Communication, she realized there was not much diversity in the creative industry she wanted to enter. Driven by a mission to create a more inclusive world, she became an entrepreneur and created her own vision on marketing and communication in a super diverse society. She has worked with clients such as Brussels Airport, Telenet, KRO-NCRV and BNP Paribas and got listed by Forbes’ 30under30 for her innovative strategies.

Philipp Budweg studied German and Art History at the LMU in Munich. He is one of the founders of Lieblingsfilm GmbH, a film production company based in Munich. It produces successful and high-quality cinema and TV films for the national and international market.

In the past 10 years, Budweg has produced numerous films, including the adaptation of the “Gemstone Trilogy” and the children’s films “Wintertochter” and “Mountain Miracle” (“Amelie Rennt”) – both of them were awarded with the German Film Prize. The „Rico, Oskar“-Films are cinema adaptions of successful children’s books, as is the Film MY LOTTA LIFE. Currently the Dance-Movie „Into the Beat – Dein Herz tanzt“ can be seen on Netflix.

Jean-Cloude has a master’s degree in translating and (co-)wrote screenplays for some 15 features in Belgium and the Netherlands including time travel adventure CRUSADE IN JEANS (2005), Cannes Critics Week screenplay award winner MOSCOW BELGIUM (2008), EFA Discovery Award Winner OXYGEN (2010, EFA best European comedy nominee VINCENT AND THE END OF THE WORLD (2016), Ghent filmfest Winner ZAGROS (2017) and the upcoming comedy MY DAD IS A SAUSAGE (2021). Jean-Claude started his career with youth oriented films that were released in Germany as DER BALL and SCIENCE FICTION/SIND ELTERN ALIENS?. Jean-Claude also writes young adult historical novels of which two were published in German. GALGENMÄDCHEN won the Judgendbuchpreis for best YA novel in Vienna. His latest novel IRONHEAD takes place during the Napoleonic wars. He also wrote comic books like the two part LES SOURIS DE LENINGRAD. He is married, is a father of 3 and takes care of a very lazy cat.

An international co-production forum for films and series aimed at children’s market. Our goal is to create a meeting place where European professionals can exchange ideas, experiences and develop new content for children. We want to create a space that will help connect projects with potential co-producers, distributors, sales agents, broadcasters and film funds. Kids Kino Industry together with Kids Kino.Lab are an industry parts of Kids Kino International Film Festival, organised by Education Department of New Horizons Association, Poland. The next edition of the forum is planned for September 2021.

Submissions are now open. Pitch your project at KKI.

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The German Children’s Media Foundation is committed to stimulate and support high quality media productions for children for cinema, television and other media in Germany. Among other projects it organizes the biggest festival for German-language children’s films and media in Gera and Erfurt – the GOLDEN SPARROW. The Foundation is also active on a European level through the initiative KIDS Regio and as a partner of European Film Academy presenting the EFA YOUNG AUDIENCE AWARD an official category of the European Film Awards. Furthermore, they are also organising the School Cinema Weeks in Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt.

Website: www.goldenerspatz.de

KIDS Regio presents a lobby initiative for high quality and multi-faceted European Children’s Films. It functions as an agent between policy and society, the film industry and the scientific world in order to form a network and discuss new synergies. Thus, the initiative supports the industry professionals by building a platform to strengthen existing networks and defining solutions to improve the status, transfer and variety of European productions and co-productions for a young audience.

Website: www.kids-regio.org

German initiative “Outstanding Films for Children” specializes in the financing of original children’s films and is backed by public broadcasters, regional and national film funders and representatives of the film business and politicians.

Website: https://der-besondere-kinderfilm.de/