Programmer for young audience, Lübeck Nordic Film Days
Attending her first Berlinale in 2006, Hanna Reifgerst found it cheaper as a cash-strapped student to see films in the festival’s youth section at Zoo Palast. “A thousand kids went totally quiet, just bursting into laughter minutes later and had a collective good cry at the grand finale,” she recalls of watching Niels Arden Oplev’s We Shall Overcome. “There is nothing better than the pure joy and awe of a young audience.”
Reifgerst’s love for youth cinema was born. After studying at Bauhaus University in Weimar, where she now lives, and at the College of Arts & Design in Barcelona, she worked in film funding (with a specialty for children’s films) for nearly a decade, and since 2022 has been having a big impact as the young audience programmer at Lübeck’s Nordic Film Days, concentrating on Nordic and Baltic films. She also curates for Golden Sparrow International Film Festival and serves as a consultant and dramaturg.
Reifgerst is keen to lower barriers for audiences “with disabilities or special needs, old people, families with small children but without babysitters, students, low-income, non-English-speakers, refugees… Film has the power to unite.”
School partnerships are key to Lübeck serving young audiences, from three years old to teenagers. But Reifgerst does not shy away from hard topics. “We should not leave our young audience alone with their feelings, the film has to offer some glimpse of hope,” she says. One recent example is the 2022 Swedish feature Comedy Queen, about a girl and her father navigating grief through stand-up comedy.
This year Reifgerst is encouraged having seen more filmmakers open to co-curation, as well as more documentaries being made for the youth audience. “Programming for young audiences is exactly the same as it is for adults,” she says. “You simply search for the best films.”
Contact: Hannah Reifgerst
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