Reaching Young Audiences Through Co-Creation

What can the film industry learn from a generation whose attention is shared between cinema, streaming platforms, gaming and social media? And what changes when we stop seeing young people simply as audiences to reach, and start involving them as creative partners?
This talk explores how children and young people can be meaningfully involved at different stages of filmmaking – from story and script development to shooting and creative feedback, as well as the development of distribution and marketing strategies.
Through practical methods and examples, the presentation will look at how collaboration with young audiences can influence creative decision-making. How can filmmakers genuinely listen to young people without treating them simply as a “test audience”? How can their perspectives become part of the creative process while preserving the filmmaker’s own artistic vision?
Ultimately, the aim is to create films for young audiences that tell authentic stories and explore themes that genuinely reflect what children and young people care about, experience and connect with.