Forming European Film Festival Networks
Through their film and accompanying programmes, festivals bring together diverse film and audiovisual practices and communities. At the same time, their geographical locations and cultural and institutional contexts present different challenges. The formation of European networks therefore does not follow a single model but grows out of specific needs in the festival sector.
In 2026, 84 international film festivals in Europe are connected through 15 networks supported by the EU’s Creative Europe – MEDIA programme. In June 2026, CED Slovenia (Motovila) hosted the first meeting of European festival networks, initiated by the national Creative Europe MEDIA Desks, at the Kino Otok – Isola Cinema International Film Festival. The five networks represented at the meeting encompass 30 film festivals from across Europe and have developed specific methodologies and processes to achieve their goals.
Led by Slovenia’s Kino Otok – Isola Cinema, the Young Programmers for Young Audiences! (Young4Film) network comprises six festivals spanning different film genres and regions. Emerging from the need to involve young people more deeply, the network draws on the original Moving Cinema methodology for developing active young film audiences. It has created participatory formats that challenge the established festival practice of having film programmes for young audiences curated exclusively by adults. The network is also developing sustainability and social awareness strategies and integrating them into the Moving Cinema Young Programmers methodology.
The seven-member Moving Images – Open Borders (MIOB) network addresses a different set of challenges. Like Young4Film, it brings together festivals from across Europe with a wide range of organisational capacities. Established in 2017 during the Syrian refugee crisis, MIOB promotes democratic values, intercultural dialogue and social progress. Its members share a strong commitment to independent European arthouse cinema, through which they foreground diverse cultural perspectives and encourage critical reflection on the social, political and environmental challenges of the contemporary world.
Regional Connections
The Network of Festivals in the Adriatic Region (NFAR) also focuses on the circulation of European films, particularly in countries with low audiovisual production capacity. Among its six members, which are linked by their shared history in the former Yugoslav region, Slovenia is represented by the Ljubljana International Film Festival (LIFFe). The festivals collaborate to overcome the barriers created by fragmented national audiovisual markets and to accelerate the distribution of European works beyond their countries of origin. Shared tools, programming practices and knowledge exchange help reduce organisational disparities between partners.
Northern Animation Network (NAN) is likewise built on historic regional ties and the mutual trust that has grown from them. The festival platforms from four Nordic and Baltic countries are, however, also united by a shared field: animation in the broadest sense – from film and video games to visual effects, extended reality and emerging technologies. Through its shared digital platform, the network offers interviews with creators and curated content for a wider Northern European audience, increasing the visibility of animation creators and professionals.
An interest in a particular film genre or form may also bring festivals together. The European Network for Film Discourse (The END), whose eight members include FeKK – Ljubljana Short Film Festival, is dedicated to short film. In addition to championing the short form, the network identified a need to improve film literacy and therefore focuses on fostering critical reflection and film discourse among (young) audiences through workshops and mentoring programmes. A key network platform is the online magazine Talking Shorts, which reaches around 10,000 users monthly and publishes reviews, essays and conversations with filmmakers and programmers.
Although networks form in response to different needs and address different aspects of festival operations, the festival sector always converges on one central concern: the audience. Within networks, efforts to broaden reach and develop audiences can have a multiplier effect. Every festival contributes good practices that others can adopt, while partners also develop projects together that limited organisational capacity would make difficult to deliver on their own. The aim of these activities is not simply to increase audience numbers. Rather than focusing solely on boosting cinema attendance, they seek to build close, long-term relationships with visitors and turn audiences into connected and loyal communities.
Building Communities
Changing viewing habits require festivals to better understand their audiences and the values they hold. To this end, festival networks use new digital tools and technologies to analyse audience behaviour, habits and expectations. Curatorial decisions attempt to detect audience needs and themes arising from contemporary issues. Festivals also use digital tools to develop strategies for establishing, sustaining and diversifying their relationships with audiences. A distinct part of inclusion is the development of concrete models for increasing accessibility to include as diverse a range of audiences as possible, alongside formats that invite audiences to take on a more active role, transforming them from observers into active participants.
Programming
Audience development is not merely a matter of communication at the end of the curatorial process – it guides programme development from the outset. FeKK highlights the use of distinct curated programme sections as a way of reaching different audience groups and building relationships with them. Collaboration with guest curators can broaden the festival's reach, while retrospectives and special thematic strands appeal to different groups of viewers. LIFFe, whose programme comprises more than 100 films, faces a different challenge. As Slovenia's largest cultural event, it also reaches people who do not regularly attend cinemas. Because ticket sales account for a substantial share of its budget, the festival must balance its curatorial ambitions with audience demand, anticipate attendance and match screenings to venues of appropriate capacity. Even after many years of experience, audience response remains difficult to predict, making an ongoing understanding of audience behaviour essential.
By contrast, the Trieste Film Festival, a member of MIOB, adapts its film selection less to audience preferences and also seeks to challenge viewers with more demanding films. It therefore devotes particular attention to communicating with audiences, explaining what a particular film offers and why it is worth seeing. Representatives of the other networks at the meeting likewise stressed the importance of linking programming with communication and other areas of festival work; Young4Film goes a step further, connecting programming, communication and education to create a threefold effect. It actively involves young people in designing and delivering festivals, with some participants trying their hand as co-moderators, co-curators and assistants. Audiences become participants, participants become professionals, and professionalisation contributes significantly to the longevity and resilience of festivals.
Participatory Formats
In developing young audiences, it is important to distinguish symbolic forms of participation from more complex forms of engagement. Young people’s participation in juries and in awarding prizes is far from insignificant, as it creates a sense of belonging. However, Young4Film notes that actively involving young people in programming itself is a much longer and more demanding mentoring process encompassing learning, discussion, contextualisation and responsibility. In the coming years, the network aims to turn the training it provides for three age groups of children and young people into regular, structured opportunities.
The END has similar ambitions, but time constraints prevent it from implementing a more demanding mentoring process. It therefore currently engages young people through tandem workshops for film critics and curators, linked each year to different European film festivals. The number of participants interested in becoming involved in festival production continues to grow and has now reached around 80. The END sees expanding its capacity to guide more participants through a structured mentoring process as its main area for improvement. Participatory formats are not limited to young people: NFAR workshops address audiences across generations and levels of professional experience – for example, cinephiles aged 54 and over.
Alongside mentoring programmes and workshops, awards can also generate a degree of involvement and belonging: NFAR’s Adriatic Audience Award raises the profile of films from European countries with low or medium audiovisual production capacity, while The END’s New Critics & New Audiences Award links short-film screenings with discussions and online voting, fostering connections among young critics, curators and new audiences for European short films.
Audience development thus often grows into talent development – nurturing future filmmakers, critics, curators and festival professionals. In this context, FeKK particularly emphasises the importance of festivals and networks for individuals’ professional development.
Accessibility and Inclusion
While participatory formats give audiences a greater role, accessibility broadens the circle of people able to take part in the festival experience in the first place. Considering who can attend festival programmes and under what conditions is crucial to audience diversification. Inclusion is not just about technical adaptations. It is also a process of collaborating with specific groups or communities, through which dedicated film programmes are developed and the festival’s communication and other aspects are adapted to better meet their needs.
Viborg Animation Festival, a NAN member, organises screenings for neurodivergent young audiences. An external collaborator with links to people with autism and ADHD helped the festival to adjust sound, lighting and arrangements for entering the cinemas, while also facilitating communication with schools and pupils with special needs. Zagreb Film Festival, a member of NFAR, works with various associations representing people with visual and hearing impairments. In addition to adaptations for these audiences, it has also developed intercultural film programmes for different vulnerable groups, including an inclusive screening programme with Arabic and Ukrainian subtitles. Curatorial choices are more carefully considered when they emerge from dialogue with the communities that festivals seek to reach.
Although the Trieste Film Festival remains committed to arthouse cinema and is less inclined to tailor its curatorial choices to different audiences, it takes a broader view of accessibility. In addition to offering adapted screenings for people with visual impairments, the festival opens its doors to migrants and refugees in Trieste by providing free tickets and includes filmmakers from politically unstable countries who have fewer opportunities for international collaboration. Online screenings are another example of good practice in widening access: Young4Film uses them to bring film programmes to rural or economically disadvantaged communities, where a school trip to the cinema is not feasible for either logistical or financial reasons.
Digital Tools
Online screenings are just one of the digital formats that festival networks use to work with audiences. Digital formats not only broaden access to festival content but also extend the life of the festival beyond the dates of the event itself, support audience education and the promotion of filmmakers and films. MIOB uses digital tools to analyse surveys conducted among its audiences to identify who attends its festivals and understand visitors’ motivations and broader cultural habits.
In the wake of the pandemic, digital versions of physical events proliferated; major gaming conventions, for example, largely moved online. However, the digital environment is inherent to gaming, whereas in other festival contexts hybrid models do not provide viewers with an authentic experience. Digital formats make the most sense when they complement in-person festivals and offer possibilities that the physical event cannot. The networks particularly stress that digital formats work best when designed specifically for digital use rather than attempting to replicate the physical festival experience. Thus, instead of live-streaming festival discussions or conversations with creators, NAN produces stylised video interviews with animators designed for long-term online use. Because the interviews appear on YouTube and social media, where audiences are accustomed to similar content, the viewing experience feels more authentic.
Such online collections are gradually becoming important digital archives of particular film forms or genres. With each new video, NAN is building an archive that helps preserve the cultural heritage of Northern European animation and its creators, who otherwise receive limited exposure. Similarly, through reviews, essays and interviews in its magazine Talking Shorts, The END increases the visibility of short films and extends their life beyond festival screenings.
Networks as Living Organisms
Today, audience development is no longer simply a question of promotion or higher festival attendance but a long-term process of community-building. Since this requires collaboration with different groups of visitors, experimentation and the development of new formats, it makes little sense for festivals to search for answers in isolation. Festival networks are more than formal structures that bring their member festivals additional funding. They are living, working communities that exchange good practices and test innovative approaches that individual organisations would struggle to establish on their own. Herein lies one of the greatest values of European film festival networks: they make good ideas transferable across borders, helping to build more successful festivals and more enduring communities.
About the Article
The text was written by Nika Mušič in June 2026 in the framework of the public procurement "Development and upgrade of information portals of the Ministry of Culture for the transition to the eKultura platform" in which Motovila Institute collaborates as a partner with Ljudmila Art and Science Laboratory.
Nika Mušič has a background in comparative literature and many years of experience in publishing, where she worked as an editor in the field of contemporary and children's literature, as well as a proofreader and literary critic. Since 2024, she has been employed at Motovila (CED Slovenia), fostering cooperation in the cultural and creative sectors.
See also
External links
Networks and platforms
- Young Programmers for Young Audiences! – website
- Moving Images – Open Borders – website
- Northern Animation Network – website
- Network of Festivals in the Adriatic Region – website
- The European Network for Film Discourse, Talking Shorts – website