Schools & Groups
Help your students experience the world in a new way - all it takes is a trip to the movies!
Perfect for schools or organizations from Chicago or the suburbs, a visit to the Chicago International Children's Film Festival gives your child's classroom a boost with an abundance of films from every corner of the globe. Starting in October, we'll present three weeks of multi-cultural films that encourage children to explore world cultures, language studies, creative arts, social studies, history, literature and more.
See Illinois State Learning Goals fulfilled by group screenings!
The Festival’s interactive, multicultural film programs address:
- Language Arts: Critical Thinking and Higher Order Thinking Skills
- Social Science: Global Culture and Cross-Cultural Understanding
- Fine Arts: Filmmaking Activities and Media Literacy
- Social Emotional: Values Clarification, Character Building and Problem Solving
- Foreign Language
- Science
The Festival reaches children of all ages with inspiring messages, diverse stories, and intellectually stimulating activities. After one trip to the Festival, you will have weeks of exciting and thought-provoking material for discussion, writing assignments, and follow-up exercises.
Each program is supported by a comprehensive curriculum and stimulating post-film discussions led by the Festival’s trained media educators. Over 150 international actors and filmmakers also attend screenings to introduce their films and host Q&As with students. Participating educators receive a free 130-page curriculum guide with Learning and Assessment Plans aligned with Illinois Learning Standards to relate film to schoolwork and to further expand your students’ learning after the Festival.
Festival Highlights:
- More than 250 of the best films and videos for children from over 40 countries.
- Film programs tailored specifically to each grade level.
- My First Movies! programs now scheduled for Pre-K and Kindergarten classes.
- Diverse films celebrate cultural diversity, including:
- Proud to Be Me: Stories of African and African-American Children
- Espanol Para Todos: Spanish language program
- Free 130-page curriculum with Learning and Assessment Plans aligned with Illinois Learning Standards.
- Free Professional Development Workshops (with CPDU credits) for attending educators.
Check out other opportunities for classrooms & teachers, year-round! The Chicago International Children's Film Festival offers professional development workshops for educators and the CineStudy Spotlight; a variety of special screening programs and hands-on filmmaking workshops for your students.
The Chicago International Children's Film Festival is the largest festival of films for children in North America and features over 200 films from 40 countries. One of the most unique festivals in the country, showcasing the best in culturally diverse, non-violent, value affirming new cinema for children, the Festival is the only Academy Award® Qualifying children's film festival.
Welcoming 25,000 Chicago area children, adults, and educators each year, over 100 filmmakers, media professionals & celebrities attend the Festival to lead interactive workshops with kids. Interactive workshops comprise an important part of our mission to make media a participatory rather than a passive experience. Past attendees include: Shia LaBeouf (Transformers, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), animators from LAIKA Studios (makers of Coraline), Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park, The Young Victoria), LeVar Burton (Reading Rainbow, Star Trek: The Next Generation), Jane Seymour (Wedding Crashers), Harold Ramis (Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day), Sissy Spacek (Coal Miner's Daughter); Terry Jones (Monty Python's Flying Circus); and film critic Roger Ebert.
For more than 30 years, the Chicago International Children's Film Festival has set new standards for what children's festivals can achieve. As the largest and longest running children's film program in North America, the Chicago International Children's Film Festival discovers the best in world cinema by continually raising the bar for quality children's programming.
