NEWS
Youth Exhange: Oulu-Berlin
A collaboration project between Oulu International Children’s and Youth Film Festival and the Federal Association for Youth and Film (BJF) and Finnland-Institut from Germany.
As part of the project, three German and three Finnish participants will be invited to meet and actively participate at the bilateral level in two different European cultural events.
The three German participants Lotte Dorner, Konstantin Marx, and Emilia Pegler are members of the Youth Film Jury, a participatory project run by the BJF in Frankfurt. In Germany, there are a total of 13 juries that screen films before their theatrical release, discuss them, and publish their recommendations on a website along with a review. Movie recommendations from kids, for kids.
The three Finnish participants Benjamin Härkönen, Milla Lyytinen, and Caroliina Tennivaara are media and visual communication students from Educational Consortium OSAO. OSAO is a long time partner of Oulu festival and in previous years the students from the vocational school have taken part in the festival as young film makers and youth jury members.
In November 2026, three German and three Finnish participants will form together with Kaisla Pitkälä the festival’s Youth Jury and jointly award the Global Future Prize for the best film in the Youth Film Competition. The 4H Association of Oulu presents the award.
In February 2027 all six participants will receive a badge for the Berlinale, the Berlin International Film Festival. They will attend the premieres in the “Generation” section and become part of the Generation reports (FGR) —a project in which they, as an independent group of young journalists, will report on the children’s and youth film section. They will publish all articles and interviews on a website, on social media, and as podcasts. In preparation, all participants will take part in a three-part workshop on writing film reviews.
This cultural youth exhange is sponsored by:
The Federal Association for Youth and Film (BJF) Germany: a nationwide project that has been bringing together children and young people aged 10 up and above in 13 juries since 2018
Finnland-Institut, Germany: Non-profit forum for Finnish culture, science, and business in German-speaking Europe, based in Berlin, Germany (https://www.finnland-institut.de/en/)
Collaborators:
Educational Consortium OSAO, Oulu, Finland; The Federal Association for Youth and Film (BJF), Germany, Finnland-Institut, Germany, and Oulu International Children’s and Youth Film Festival.