The ECFA Beat format is a circuit of informal talks in which festival visitors share their opinions on current challenges in the youth film sector. For example, during the Zlin Film Festival, international guests debated the precarious situation of many European youth film festivals. The trigger was the striking situation of the Oulu Int’l Children’s Film Festival, represented by Mika Anttolainen.
This year, the Finnish Film Foundation decided to abolish all funding for the Oulu Film Festival, being the only children’s film festival in Finland. Last year, Oulu had been funded with €45,000, the bottom-result of an ongoing decrease over the last few years. The Foundation is not legally obliged to justify its decisions, but the FFF support was critical for Oulu, which now has to scale down its activities.
Interestingly, in the last few years the festival has achieved unique levels of attendance through its successful online screenings, growing from 75,000 attendees in 2021 to 228,301 in 2023. There is not a similar case to be found in Europe. Most festivals that had to reinvent themselves online due to the pandemic in 2020, have not managed to maintain – let alone increase – their audiences, and most of them have abandoned or drastically limited their online activities ever since. Oulu came with a different story… but doesn’t seem to be rewarded for it.
In the latest ECFA Journal, ECFA President Pantelis Panteloglou called for more attention for events ending up in deep water due to a lack of financial support. “ECFA should collect concrete information and lobby for our members’ interests.” ECFA stands for solidarity, but what’s the power of solidarity when money is at stake? After the ECFA Beat session, members have already expressed their solidarity with the Oulu Children’s Film Festival, via letters of support.
Following Mika Anttolainen’s testimony, more members sounded the international alarm bell. The discussion that followed led to a need to focus on collecting relevant information and intervene where necessary. Pantelis Panteloglou, who moderated the session, pledged that this line of work will be integrated in the ECFA Board’s activities in the next few months along with a more general approach of outreach to national film authorities regarding children’s film policies across Europe.
The ECFA Beat was a part of the Zlin Industry Days. Other industry events included lectures by Dennis Ruh (former director of the European Film Market – Berlin) and by Swedish screenwriter Jessika Jankert, and the pitches of a number of student films to the festival programmers present.
Copyright photos: Zlin Film Festival