For the sixth consecutive edition, Festival de Málaga, Valladolid International Film Week (Seminci), Sitges Film Festival,  Seville Film Festival and Huelva Film Festival, under the brand Profestivales21 and in collaboration with the FILMIN platform, are promoting film education for young spectators from all over Spain through the online channel Ventana Cinéfila. This initiative is aimed at primary and secondary schools in Castilla y León, Andalusia and Catalonia, which can apply to take part as of 15 September.

The project offers students the opportunity to view a selection of recently produced international films curated and agreed upon by programmers from five of Spain’s most important festivals. Screenings will take place from 15 October to 30 November with prior registration. In addition to their cinematographic quality, titles are chosen based on thematic and aesthetic balance according to the age of the different school stages.

Each school will also receive a complete educational guide for each title so that teachers can enrich classroom debate before and after the screening, as well as work in depth and in a cross-cutting manner with different subjects. Screenings will be accompanied by a recorded presentation by the programmers, offering clues about the films that highlight each of the titles.

Since its launch in 2020, Ventana Cinéfila has scheduled 39 feature films and 55 short films, both animated and live-action, on a wide range of themes and current social issues. In 2024, this pioneering programme reached 365,906 young viewers and attracted the participation of more than 1,000 schools in Castilla y León, Andalusia and Catalonia.

Selected titles

This year's Ventana Cinéfila programme includes seven feature films and two programmes each with six short films, featuring a variety of themes and styles. These films coincide in delving into moments of life transformation, the challenges of personal growth and the importance of authentic human bonds, addressing these universal themes from diverse cultural perspectives.

A large number of the feature films explore the search for identity and purpose in life during the transition from childhood or adolescence to adulthood. Like Kattia G. Zúñiga's Sister & Sister, which narrates the journey of two teenage sisters as a metaphor for emotional development; or Émilie Carpentier's L'horizon, about a young French girl, the daughter of Senegalese immigrants, who seeks to find her place in the world through political and environmental awareness.

Personal growth is combined with adventure and magical elements in the animation proposals Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds, by Benoît Chieux, and Tony, Shelly and the Magic Light, by Filip Pošivač (Contrechamp prize at the Annecy animation festival), a fable about accepting difference as a gift. The third animated work, Oink Oink by Mascha Halberstad, is an amusing story starring a little pig, filmed using the stop-motion technique, which has won awards at various international festivals.

As have Radical, by Christopher Zalla, Film Favorite Award at Sundance 2023, and To Books and Women I Sing, by María Elorza, Youth Award at San Sebastián, which also share an approach in favour of education as an agent of empowerment and social transformation. The first is based on a true story about a teacher in a Mexican village, while Elorza's debut film is a poetic documentary structured around four stories of women who care for books against fire, water, moths, dust, ignorance and fanaticism.

The programme of six short films aimed at secondary school students addresses themes such as communication difficulties, moments of transition and self-discovery experienced in adolescence and the exploration of dual or parallel worlds. The programme includes Alien0089, by Valeria Hofmann, which has won major awards at the Sundance, Clermont-Ferrand and Dresden festivals.

The short films selected for the children's audience, all animated works, convey values such as friendship, perseverance, collaboration and personal acceptance, using anthropomorphised characters or everyday objects that are accessible to pupils of this age.

Feature films

• To Books and Women I Sing, by María Elorza (Spain, 2022)

• Oink Oink, by Mascha Halberstad (Netherlands, Belgium, 2022)

• L’horizon, by Émilie Carpentier (France, 2021)

• Sister & Sister, by Kattia G. Zúñiga (Panama, Chile, 2023)

• Radical, by Christopher Zalla (United States, Mexico, 2023)

• Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds, by Benoît Chieux (France, Belgium, 2023)

• Tony, Shelly and the Magic Light, by Filip Pošivač (Hungary, Czech Republic, 2023)

Short films primary schools

• Foxtale, by Alexandra Allen (Portugal, 2022)

• Homework, by Nacho Arjona (Spain, 2024)

• Jules et Juliette, by Chantal Peten (2022)

• Spring Always Comes Back, by Alicia Núñez Puerto (Spain, 2021)

• Tobi and the Turbobus, by Verena Fels and Marc Angele (Germany, 2020)

• Go my way, by Chelo Loureiro (Spain, 2024)

Short films secondary schools

• Alien0089, by Valeria Hofmann (Chile, Argentina, 2023)

• At Sixteen, by Carlos Lobo (Portugal, 2022)

• Kawauso, by Akihito Izuhara (Japan, 2023)

• Les Criminels, by Serhat Karaaslan (France, Romania, Turkey, 2020)

• Salt Moon, by Mariona Martínez (Spain, 2024)

• Dad's Sneakers, by Olha Zhurba (Ukraine, 2021)

Registration form: https://forms.gle/uJwizWQ4jRQXJBo76

• Code applications: from 15 September

• Screening: 15 October-30 November

• Deadline to apply for screening codes: up to 29 November