The YCN members meet annually for the YCN conference, which is held in a different location each year. The conference is usually attached to a festival event and focuses on the topic that was the most engaging regarding youth cinema in that period of time.
This year's conference took place during the Fish – Festivalen im Stadshafen, from 9th to 10th of May in Rostock, Germany. Besides YCN members (who were in total 35 present), it was also opened to professional film educators from the German film industry. The time in Rostock was both productive and creative. Except for YCN internal planning, the Conference covered following topics:
· Collaborative Café where different film education perspectives were shared: “Dubbing a movie scene” by Robert Hinterleitner (YAAAS! Linz, Austria), “Additional qualification in film education” by Vera Schöpfer (Filmhaus Köln, Germany), “16 mm Found Footage Workshop” by Sophia Wohlfahrt (REC Berlin, Germany) and “Film in an urban space” by Hana Repše (Enimation Maribor, Slovenia)
· More than just a film – open panel on How to empower with film work
· More than just a festival – open panel on How to empower with festival work
· AI in film and film education where members shared their experience, such as “How not to worry about AI...” by Manolis Melissourgos (Camera Zizanio Festival, Greece) and “How to create visuals for festivals with AI” by Eivind Nordengen (Amandus Filmfestival, Norway). The second part was designed as a lab on how to define the objectives of potential cooperation projects with the help of AI which was led by Alexander Rihl, M.A. (Institute of Political Sciences and Communications, University of Greifswald, Germany).
Important part of the Conference was presentation of so called YCN Collaborative map, which maybe summarise the core of the network in the best possible way. If one checks the map: Collaborativ Map YCN – Google Mina kartor one can see all the connection that YCN already made happen: all the collaborations in the framework of workshops, festival, jury members, festival volunteering and other joint event. And that is actually the real value of the network: to find a partner on the other side of the globe who share the same energy regarding the development of youth cinema.
Next YCN Conference is planned for November 2025 in Trollhättan (Sweden) in the framework of Novemberfestivalen.