FAQs for Producers
Q: What are the KIDS FIRST! criteria?A. The baseline criteria are:
Q: How do I submit a title?
A: Fill out the application form at the top of this page. Choose either Withoutabox "Festival only" submission or KIDS FIRST! Endorsement and Film Festival submission or Festival only submission. Send your application, along with the number of copies required, three for Festival only and six for Endorsement / Festival consideration, along with the application fee to the address on the bottom of the application form.
Q. How long does the Endorsement evaluation take?
A. Approximately thirty to sixty days. If you need
a quicker turn-around, contact our Jury
Coordinator at 505-989-8076 to request special treatment.
We can usually accommodate your needs. There is an additional fee
of $50 per title plus any special delivery expenses. Please don't contact us about the status of your endorsement before 60 days after your submission is complete.
Q. What does my KIDS FIRST! Endorsement evaluation application fee
cover?
A. One fee covers it all! Once you've paid your application
fee, your title is evaluated and rated by our trained adult and
child jurors. You don't just get an endorsement, you also get
feedback from our focus groups of children of the appropriate age
whose actual comments are posted on our website. If your title
is not endorsed, you receive a letter giving specific information
letting you know exactly why it was not endorsed, and it will not
appear anywhere on our web site. If you make changes to it, you
may re-submit it for a re-evaluation for a fee of 50% of the original
fee paid.
All endorsed titles are considered for inclusion in the KIDS FIRST! Film Festival. Going into its eighth year, the Festival is a showcase for new and classic children's films, DVDs and TV shows from studios, independent producers and kids worldwide, which travels world-wide. The Festival travels to more than 100 different venues year-round and plays to an audience of more than 600,000. The KIDS FIRST! Film Festival partner venues include children's museums, established film festivals, nonprofit film centers and community centers which host daily, weekly, monthly and annual screenings of KIDS FIRST! Official Festival Selections. Check our Festival website for a list of current screenings.
Q. How the KIDS FIRST! Evaluation Process Work?
A. Titles are voluntarily submitted by producers or suppliers who pay an application fee. Evaluations are conducted by our volunteer jurors who are drawn from a pool of more than 300 adults who are child development specialists, teachers, librarians, concerned parents and more than 3000 kids - ages 0 through 18. Our evaluators are trained in the KIDS FIRST! Junior Film Critics program which teaches them how to use the standardized criteria and evaluation tools developed for KIDS FIRST!
Our jurors meet in many settings, including after-school programs, daycare facilities, girl scout troops, church groups and informal neighborhood groups throughout the U.S. and Canada. They represent a very diverse population which gives us input from many different cultural groups. Each title is evaluated by five adults and five children's groups, comprising five to thirty children each.
Every title that receives a KIDS FIRST! endorsement is added to the
"reviews" section of our web site, will be featured in one
of our monthly newsletters and will be listed in our "new endorsement" web
site section. With more than 1.3 million hits per
month, this is a great way for your title to gain visibility. You
pay nothing extra for this.
Provided it meets additional requirements, we may invite you to sell your film through our online store, www.kidsfirstmedia.com .
You will be notified about this after the
endorsement evaluation is complete.
