A total of 263 short and feature films from over 40 countries will be presented, 70 long and 84 short films will compete for the coveted trophies in the competition categories of children's film, junior film, youth film, animated film, Blickpunkt Deutschland and short film. Other productions will be screened in the non-competitive Panorama section, a special program focusing on countries in the UK. Film screenings in the autumn holidays following the festival complete the offer.

For 25 years, the mission of the International Film Festival SCHLINGEL for Children and young audiences has been to give a stage - or rather a screen - to those films that are unfortunately neglected in everyday commercial life. Numerous wonderful productions do not make it to the German market for various reasons and are thus lost to our children and young people.

Obviously one of the biggest barriers is the language. This is why the festival week presents a unique opportunity to watch films with subtitles or live dubbed in the cinema. The best of them often succeed in jumping into German cinemas or TVs after the IFF SCHLINGEL, although this process usually takes several years to complete. On the one hand, the prizes offered help here. On the other hand, many representatives of the film industry also use the festival to search for worthwhile productions.

In recent months the program committee has screened more than 1050 productions from 84 countries - about half of them were short fiction and animated films - to select the right ones for the festival. Films from Chile are represented as well as films from South Korea, Australia stands side by side with Estonia. However, outstanding national films will also be shown. Thus, 2 productions celebrate their world premiere as well as 3 their international premiere, 2 flicker for the first time over a European screen and 41 over a German screen. The short film program features 5 world premieres, 3 international and 37 German premieres.