Cinekid Industry Forum 2025 invites the professionals from film and digital media to engage with discussions around the festival's theme Time Travel. On October 21, 24 invited expert speakers from 10 countries will share their insights on the past and future of the children's media industry in the form of a keynote and thematic roundtables. The interactive format welcomes knowledge exchange, inspiration and meaningful connections between the makers, innovators, researchers, educators and the wide range of creatives attending Cinekid for Professionals.

How can the children's media industry professionalise and flourish in the current unsettled climate? How can we resist technological hypes, social polarisation and the growing isolation of young audiences? How can we build mutual trust and create stories and spaces where everyone feels seen and welcome? While there are no simple answers to these questions, we dare to look ahead and collectively imagine the future of the children's media industry: inclusive, engaging, interactive and sustainable. A future in which makers share authentic stories, and where audiences are equipped with empathy, critical thinking, and digital literacy tools.

By offering different case studies, success stories, and looking behind the scenes of films and immersive media projects showcased at Cinekid, the Industry Forum strengthens connections between the festival’s programme and its creators - inviting us all to glimpse the future through their eyes. 

Telling New Futures
How media, arts, and culture shape the futures we believe in
Thor Svanholm Gustavfson - Senior Advisor at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, Project Lead at Teach the Future Denmark, and Member of the Steering Committee at the Danish Coalition for Future Generations.

Children grow up surrounded by stories about the future. But what kind of futures are they being offered? Across news, social media, and popular culture, we tend to see the same recurring narratives - centered around technological breakthroughs, crisis or climate collapse. What’s often missing are futures that invite nuance, care, and co-creation.

In this keynote, Thor Svanholm Gustavfson makes the case for strengthening what UNESCO calls Futures literacy - the ability to imagine and use the future - in different ways - to prepare, adapt and innovate in a world marked by uncertainty and constant change. In times of high uncertainty and declining collective imagination, this becomes more than a skill. It becomes a necessity. Futures literacy helps us uncover the hidden assumptions behind the futures we carry with us and opens a space for children to become not just recipients of inherited narratives of the future - but active shapers of new ones.

Drawing on work from UNESCO, Teach the Future, and his experience working across education, arts, and culture, Thor presents the vital role of storytelling in strengthening imagination, hope, and agency among the youngest generations. Stories become a way for children to explore different possible worlds - and to consider who they want to be within them. If we want children to have a different future, we need to give them different stories to grow up with.

The interactive part of the Industry Forum allows the participants to create their own, unique schedules. Every table features three rounds of talks, presenting three different perspectives on each subject. The participants can change the tables each round, no prior registration is required.

• Table 1: Audiences of Tomorrow
  Co-creation practice in game design, participatory programming in film institutions and new habits of young digital natives.
  
  
• Table 2: From Screen to Classroom
• Exploring the educational potential of films and behind the scenes of educational film distribution.
  
  
• Table 3: The World of Non-Fiction
• Breaking the genre rules and navigating the documentary distribution landscape.
  
  
• Table 4: Futures of Children Media
  Future literacy and new strategies for shaping the inclusive future of children media.
  
  
• Table 5: Authentic Storytelling
  In search for authenticity in filmmaking, scriptwriting, and festival programming.
  
  
• Table 6: Reviving the Past
  Engaging and creative ways to learn from the past: archival storytelling, historical fiction, and beyond
  
  
• Table 7: Responsible Screentime
  Spotlight on digital literacy and a buyer’s take on responsible programming choices.
  
  
• Table 8: World (re)Building
  Growing up with your audience through sequels, series, and IPs: strategies for building, managing, and promoting new film worlds.
  
  
• Table 9: Sustainable Stories
  The planetary costs of AI in filmmaking and inspiring green practices in festival production.
  
  
• Table 10: The Future is Immersive
  Case studies and discussions showcasing the latest trends in immersive media landscape.
  
  

We are thankful to the Industry Forum Partners hosting the roundtables: Creative Europe Desk NL | Dutch Culture, Netherlands Film Fund, SEE NL, Network Screen the Future, Danish Film Institute, Athens International Children Film Festival, BUFF Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Publikum, Lab Vlieland, XR Lab.

All industry professionals in children’s film and media who want to get up to speed with the latest trends, developments, opportunities, and challenges in the industry.