PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL 2026: What will be the finalists?
Meet the Preselection Jury!
For over 60 years, the world of children’s television has been coming together in Munich at PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL to engage in intensive discussions about quality in programming for young audiences. The next festival will take place from May 29 to June 3 at Bayerischer Rundfunk. Nearly 400 programmes from 51 countries were submitted to compete in the main categories.
In January, a high-caliber international jury will meet to decide which programmes will advance to the final round. Over the course of an intensive week, the nine experts will watch and discuss from early morning until late at night, carefully considering how to put together the final programme for the competition. Their task goes far beyond ranking programmes; the final selection is meant to showcase not only outstanding quality, but also innovation and new perspectives on what the future of children’s media could look like.
These are the jury members:
Carmen Daut
Commissioning Editor, Children’s Department, ZDF, Germany
Florencia Donagaray
BBC Children’s, Uruguay/UK
Elke Franke
General coordination, Vientos Culturales A.C., Mexico
Giselle Geney
Director, Producer, Editor, Colombia
David Kleeman
Senior VP of Global Trends for Dubit, USA
Marney Malabar
Consultant, Malabar Creative Consulting, Canada
Monika E. Schweiger
Commissioning Editor, Children’s, Bayerischer Rundfunk/ARD and Creative Producer, Lupalipa Media, Germany
Pin Leng
General Director, Fubon Cultural & Educational Foundation, Taiwan
Nils Stokke
Founder & CEO of Spark, Norway
The jury’s results will be announced at the end of January.
Around 400 participants from all over the world are expected to attend the festival week in early summer. They come to PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL to exchange ideas, learn from each other, network, and find inspiration for what strong children’s screen media can look like. A special feature of PRIX JEUNESSE is its participatory spirit: All attendees are invited to join the voting on the award winners.
In addition to viewing and discussing the final programmes, PRIX JEUNESSE offers research input on the respective festival theme. In 2026, this theme will be: “Media Literacy in Times of Polarization – The Role of Children’s TV.” Based on the latest research findings, we will discuss the role that children’s media can play in promoting media literacy among children and young people of different age groups.
Anyone interested in quality media for children can participate in PRIX JEUNESSE INTERNATIONAL.