History of CIFEJ

Children’s Voices on Screen: A Creative Tradition from the 1950s to the 21st Century

From The Tenth Muse Contest to the Kids for Kids Festival

The idea of films made by children, for children has deep roots in CIFEJ’s history. It began in Italy in the late 1950s with The Tenth Muse, a national contest designed to give young people the tools to express themselves through film. The concept was simple but powerful: by learning how to create films, children could both understand the medium and share their own views of the world. In 1963, CIFEJ helped transform the contest into an international competition, opening the door for young voices in cinema around the globe. This vision was revived and reimagined at the beginning of the 21st century with the launch of the Kids for Kids Festival. First introduced as an experimental initiative during the 2001 World Summit on Media for Children in Thessalonica, Greece, the festival was organized in collaboration with the European Children’s Television Center (ECTC), CIFEJ, and the European Children’s Film Association (ECFA). Its purpose was to give children around the world the opportunity to create films for their peers and to have those films judged by children’s juries. Subsequent editions, including Bologna (2003) and Athens (2004), followed, with winning entries reflecting the diverse voices and realities of children from Armenia to Canada, Egypt to India. In 2007, CIFEJ officially launched Kids for Kids as a global program during its General Assembly in Amsterdam. With regional offshoots like Kids for Kids Africa, hosted by Lola Kenya Screen in Nairobi, the program combined workshops, screenings, and peer-led juries, fostering both skills and self-expression. Between 2007 and 2009, several editions were held, sparking a wave of creativity across Africa. The Kids for Kids Festival has worked as a unique international space where young people share what matters most to them—through the universal art of cinema.