Industry Forum

Cinekid Industry Forum 2026 invites the professionals from film and digital media to engage with discussions around the festival's theme. On October 13, expert speakers from different countries will share their insights on 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 do stories bring people together, and what makes a shared experience fun? Opening keynote speakers Samya Hafsaoui and Linda Duits explore connection and community from two different perspectives.

Samya Hafsaoui “Finding (Online) Community with Your Storytelling Power”
Between AI-content, bot accounts and paid ads, the internet may seem like a far away place for human connection. In her talk, screenwriter and content creator Samya Hafsaoui argues that it’s still possible to find profound human connection. Sharing your story as a creator, your creative proces (even as early as the development stage) may just be the key to unlocking an engaged and enthusiastic audience. And by doing so, gaining a stronger foundation when marketing, selling and distributing your work.

Linda Duits “Glue: The Magic of Fun Explained”
Fun seems self-evident: everybody has it, everyone enjoys it. But there’s more to fun than meets the eye. Fun is constitutive of communities. When fun is shared, something special happens. In this talk, Linda Duits explores the basics of fun from a sociological perspective: what it is, how it works, and why it is so important. But be careful: fun cannot be instrumentalised as a means to obtain your goals, nor can it be summoned on demand. Linda will show why fun & film go so well together, and how you can set-up the conditions for fun to thrive.

Pablo Núñez Palma: "Instructions for unwinding a Chatbot: making AI ours"
Sixty years before ChatGPT, writer Julio Cortázar observed that when someone gives you a watch, it is really the other way round: you are the gift, handed over to the watch. AI is a gift of that kind. We think we use it, yet it changes how we relate to the world and to each other: we keep it going with our questions, trust its answers, and turn to it before we turn to each other. Pablo Núñez Palma looks for other ways of using it through small examples from his practice: a robot filmmaker, an archive re-edited by its visitors, and a group writing game. Each one feeds the machine shared material and treats what comes out not as an answer for one person, but as something a group can sort, argue over or rewrite. So how do you unwind an AI and make it yours?

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.

Roundtable 1: Celebrating Together: Continuing the Keynote Conversation

Get the chance to sit down closely with the Industry Forum keynote speakers, as they expand on their talks and share depper insight into their work.

Roundtable 2: The Potential of Cross-media Experiences

Youth culture no longer moves in straight lines. A teenager might discover music inside a game, pick up history from a meme, or stumble into philosophy through a YouTube fan edit. Cultural meaning now takes shape across differentmedia, industries, and points of contact. Understanding it requires tools built to follow, decode, and act on that movement.

Roundtable 3: Immersive Experience for Beginners

Makers, researchers, and experts will introduce the guiding principles and ideas behind designing immersive experiences — from XR to VR and beyond. Whether you’re a maker, curator, or educator looking to create your first immersive project — this is the place to start!

Roundtable 4: Creating a shared language: Inclusive FIlm & Media

Join voices at the forefront of inclusive storytelling, redefining what it means to create for all audiences — spanning art made with young Deaf and hard-of-hearing communities, film that centers underrepresented experiences, and immersive new media that invites audiences into entirely new worlds.

Roundtable 5: How Sustainable Is the Future? New Practices for Makers and Festivals

What do we mean when we talk about sustainability? How can festivals and cultural organisations improve their sustainability practices — and what can others learn from that work? This roundtable brings together sustainability experts and producers to discuss best practices, challenges, how they’re being addressed, and what takeaways other organisers and makers can apply to their own work.

Roundtable 6: From Story to Universe: New Financing & Audience Paths for Kids’ IP

This session explores new approaches to financing and audience-building for kids’ and youth content — from strategic thinking on IP and universe-building, to a real-world look at the opportunities and lessons that come with turning a series into an IP.

Roundtable 7: Making an Impact Beyond the Cinema

How can we use film as a tool for social impact - to educate and inspire kids outside of the cinema? Professionals from different fields will share their insights on their work.

Roundtable 8: Reconsidering Audience Expectations: Content, Platforms and the Assumptions Behind Them

Children’s media has long operated on a set of unwritten rules — about what’s too dark, what’s too disruptive to established habits, and what a “good” story should look like. This roundtable brings together voices questioning those rules from different angles — content, platform and narrative structure — and asks: how should we go about reshaping content, habits and the assumptions behind them?

We are thankful to the Industry Forum Partners hosting the roundtables: Creative Europe Desk NL, SEE NL, IDFA, NAPA, Network Film Education.

Tuesday, 13 October
13:30 - 14:30 - Industry Forum Opening - Cinema 8
14:45 - 17:30 - Roundtables - Cinema 1
Pathé Amsterdam Noord