Forty years of Ale Kino!

Forty years ago, in 1969, the 1st Polish Festival of Films for Children and Young People was held in Poznań. The event immediately became a unique, comprehensive and important festival of young audience films in Poland. The Festival, at first held every two years and focused on Polish film productions, became an annual event in the 1990s and went international. At present, under a changed name, it remains the only event in Poland of such a great renown and such a large-scale promotion of modern movies for children and young people. It is also well-known and appreciated abroad as a universal forum for young audience cinema, which supports promotion of Polish and foreign works and encourages discussion of important issues in the area of cinematography having so much influence on the upbringing of future Polish generations.

The International Young Audience Film Festival Ale Kino! presents those pictures for children and youths which fall outside any mainstream trends in the market and culture. It shows films which, with their sincerity, artistry and original outlook of the young generation on the world, escape excessive didacticism and mindless entertainment. The mission of the Festival is, first of all, to enable young cinemagoers to see this kind of film productions, to launch large-scale promotion of artistic, intelligent movies for children and young people, and to create a wide discussion platform for children’s cinema.

The fortieth anniversary of the Festival is a chance not only to celebrate together or to take part in the international film world, but also to look into the future and try to answer the question of what kind of young people’s cinema is expected by young viewers, their parents and teachers; what kind of cinema children and filmmakers dream of.

Jerzy Moszkowicz
Festival Director