SCHLINGEL CEO Michael Harbauer is currently in New Delhi to present German productions at the International Children's and Youth Film Festival "Smile". Both festivals have been cooperating for a year now, after Michael Harbauer and the festival director of "Smile", Jitendra Mishra, met at the world's largest children's film festival "Golden Elephant" in Hyderabad.

The programme includes five German short and feature films from the SCHLINGEL programmes of previous editions. The aim of the focus is to exchange art, traditions and values of the two countries through cinema and to strengthen the cultural relations between the nations. The film presentations are supported by the Saxon State Chancellery and the Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung MDM, in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut.

In addition, Michael Harbauer is a member of two juries and select the award winners oft he international competition – together with the US American director, screenwriter and film producer Lawrence David Foldes, the artistic director of the children's film festival in Zlín/Czech Republic, Markéta Pášmová, and the director of the Polish children's film festival KINOLUB, Marta Kraus.

For several years now, SCHLINGEL, based in Chemnitz, has been curating German film programmes at international festivals abroad - for example in Greece, Japan, Mexico and Vietnam. In Russia and Uzbekistan, SCHLINGEL even holds its own festival. Michael Harbauer: "The appreciation we receive in this field is a great pleasure for me and a result of our great networking. My international colleagues screen the German films at SCHLINGEL, and we benefit from the productions of the respective partner festivals, so that we can give our audiences a wonderful insight into life around the globe.“

This year's edition in October showed how international SCHLINGEL is: When almost 400 filmmakers, actors, festival organisers and industry experts from 36 countries were welcomed to the opening ceremony. During the week, more than 230 films from 51 countries were shown in the programme.