Since 2007, the festival reaches out to children aged 2 to 6 attending childcare centres. It offers a programme of short films from around the world, giving mini viewers their first cinema experience.

This project, carried out in collaboration with the Maison de la Créativité makes it possible to screen the programme within the institutions themselves, with an activity depending on the location (transforming a room into a movie theatre, afternoon tea party, crafting, etc.)

During the 2016 edition, the offer was extended to the canton, and in 2025 around 89 nurseries and kindergartens took part in the Mini Black Movie, with a total of 4,000 spectators.

Since 2007, school screenings are offered to students in public schools (in collaboration with École&Culture) and private schools (AGEP) at the primary school level.

During the 2024 edition, 22 sessions were offered to a total of 3,800 students.

The 2025 school program addresses a key theme for primary school students: overcome your fears.

Fear is an emotion commonly regarded as negative, which can sometimes block us, cripple us and prevent us from moving forward (both literally and figuratively). Fear can be legitimate, serving to protect us in the face of real danger (fear of heights, for example), or irrational (certain phobias such as spiders). In all cases, it is preferable and beneficial to try to understand it and tame it rather than ignore it.

The original programmes put together by the Black Movie Festival feature characters confronted with a wide variety of fears (fear of the unknown, of others, of foreigners, of losing a loved one), who, by facing up to them, gain in confidence, autonomy and open-mindedness.

There's nothing like learning to overcome your fears in the safe, friendly environment of a cinema to help you grow as a person!

During the autumn of 2024, four programmes of short films have been screened both in the centre of Geneva and in eight neighbouring municipalities (Bernex, Chêne-Bourg, Grand-Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Meyrin, Onex, Plan-les-Ouates and Vernier). These screening were mostly free and were intended to provide access to quality films for children living in areas where there are no movie theatres.

The 2025 program will be unveiled late August

Since the beginning of the 2013-14 school year, the festival has been offering children attending GIAP (extracurricular activities) some film screenings (in the context of “Ateliers Mobiles de la Ville de Genève”) and moving picture workshops encouraging them to build optical games or make short animated films.

You can find a selection of films made during previous workshops at this address: www.vimeo.com/album/4286651

A jury made up of children aged 7 to 10 (registrations are open to the public) is asked, after a short training session, to evaluate a selection of short animated films and to select the film to be awarded the Children’s prize.