What "Made by Kids" Actually Judges — and What It Deliberately Doesn't

The Made by Kids section exists on a different judging philosophy than the rest of the festival, and it's worth being explicit about that difference so filmmakers submitting to it know what's actually being rewarded. Creativity, originality, storytelling and imagination come first. Technical execution — camera work, sound design, editing polish — is weighed, but deliberately doesn't dominate the score the way it might in an adult-directed category.

This isn't a lowered bar; it's a different bar, chosen because technical resources vary enormously among young directors in ways that have nothing to do with talent — a phone-shot film from a director with no access to editing software is judged on the strength of its idea and its execution of that idea, not penalized for lacking gear another director happened to have.

For young filmmakers weighing whether their idea is "good enough" to submit here: if the story is genuinely yours and genuinely felt, that matters more to this section's jury than whether you had professional lighting.