Documentaries for children and young audiences are still a neglected industry segment of the European media landscape. Even if they represent an important tool to accompany the cultured growth of the younger generations, they are receiving scarce attention, limited or non-existing air-time, marginal screens distribution and in general far fewer resources than animation and fictional live action. As a group of concerned people in the industry, representing festivals, educational and film institutes, associations of documentary producers, authors and directors, under the collective name D4K, have begun discussions in order to define a strategy to address this shortfall.
We're committed to find creative and sustainable ways to support the neglected genre of children documentary and are interested to find out if other media practitioners are sharing our concerns. This questionnaire should measure the temperature of the field and understand where we are at, giving us privileged insights, gather suggestions as well as learn from some best practices that could inform future undertakings in this domain. Even if your core business is not related with documentaries for children or young audiences, we would like to collect information and opinions from different contexts and perspectives. By participating in this survey, you're contributing to a strategic step in the road of putting this relevant type of content on the map and finding ways to boost the development, production, and distribution of new films for the audiences of tomorrow.
The outcome of this questionnaire will also be discussed at several upcoming events and meetings with professionals within the doc film industry like: a scriptwriting workshop "Dokumentarisches Erzählen für ein junges Publikum" in Bern, focal (25. October), Bochum think tank during DOXS RUHR (28. October), Kids Film Forum in Zurich (12. November), and during the industry days at IDFA (19. November). Furthermore, as a final step, the collective D4K is planning to use all the outcomes for a joint Creative Europe Application in the segments that are mostly needed. Please answer the questions that are relevant to your areas of expertise and allow us to remain in touch and inform you of the next initiatives.
The survey will take you about 20-30 minutes to complete.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION: The questionnaire was divided into 2 sections:
1) DEVELOPMENT and PRODUCTION is intended more for filmmakers, producers, financing and commissioning institutions, broadcasters
2) DISTRIBUTION is intended more for distributors, VOD platforms, TV stations, festivals, educational institutions and organizations
Answering all questions is not mandatory. Questions you don't know the answer to or that are outside your field of expertise can be skipped. Thanks so much for your time.
Thank you!
D4K Alliance:
Anne Rethfeldt, DAE (Documentary Association Europe), Germany
Anne Schultka/Elisabeth Wenk, Kids Regio, Germany
Davide Tosco, AIACE, Italy
Gudrun Sommer, DOXS RUHR | ECFA, Germany
Karolina Śmigiel, Andrzej Wajda Film Center, Let's Doc, Poland
Margret Albers, ECFA | Association of German Children Films, Germany
Martin Skalsky, FOCAL, Switzerland
Meike Statema/Marije Veenstra, IDFA, NL
Viola Gabrielli/Zofia Horszczaruk, YHI, Poland
