These are the winners of the Cinekid x Amarte MediaLab 2026 Open Call

Cinekid is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, which is why the theme is ‘Celebrating Together!’ In keeping with this theme, we naturally received all sorts of festive entries for the Cinekid x Amarte MediaLab 2026 Open Call, an open call for submissions of games and XR (extended reality) works for children. This year we received 17 entries, once again of a very high standard! After careful deliberation, the jury has selected two winners.

Both winners will receive €15,000 to develop and present their concept. New this year is that the creators will be given a larger budget to ensure the work is sustainable and portable, so that after this edition of the Cinekid Festival it can travel to Cinekid events across the country and to other festivals, museums, schools and libraries.

These are the winners of 2026:

Circuit City by Maryam de Vries en Lucas Dekker
How do you work together when you see the world differently? The mixed reality installation Circuit City is built around this central theme. A group of children work in a robot factory; together they design new robots and bring them to life in a playful robot world. Wearing VR headsets, three children will see various robot parts falling down in a digital world, and they must catch them. The other children (up to six) are in a physical workshop, without VR headsets, and they can press all sorts of buttons, pull levers and operate motors, thereby determining what the VR team sees. Together, they decide how the robots will be designed.

The jury on Circuit City: “A really fun, playful concept centred on collaboration and communication, even when you see the world differently. It transforms the experience of looking through virtual reality glasses from a closed, individual experience into one that focuses on collaboration, and is innovative in the field of mixed reality. The creators have just graduated and have already showcased some remarkable projects, for example at the CTRL ALT PLAY festival; that is why the jury, Cinekid and Amarte are keen to give these creators the opportunity to produce a work that will raise their profile."

Luma Loop by Studio Apvis
Luma Loop is a music, dance and light installation in which children can create a musical composition using luminous stepping stones. Surrounding the coloured stepping stones is an LED strip displaying an animation that represents the current composition, similar to the music software programme FL Studio (formerly Fruity Loops), which inspired this work. The stepping stones also control disco lights and colours to match the composition, creating a festive and musical atmosphere. Luma Loop is an experience with no beginning or end, nor any specific goal; it’s all about creativity, wonder, discovery and playing together.

The jury on Luma Loop: “Luma Loop is a screen-free interactive installation, entirely focused on the physical aspect and making music together. The jury appreciates the quality of the concept and is confident that Studio Apvis will deliver a robust, beautiful experience. The installation offers players a blank canvas where their own creativity can flow freely and where jamming together leads to beautiful compositions. This fits in very well with celebrating together, and what is a party without music?"

The keen-eyed MediaLab follower may have noticed that Studio Apvis also won the very first Open Call in 2022. However, the jury recognised that, with this work, Studio Apvis is breaking new ground in their career and that they will once again be involving new creators in their project; they therefore decided to give them another chance, resulting in this second victory.