The Story That Started It All

In 2001, an American filmmaker and festival programmer serving on the Berlin Film Festival Kinderfilm jury met Felix, an 11-year-old festival regular who had been watching international cinema since age 4. What started as a curious conversation became a decade-long investigation into a question with profound implications for education:

How do the films we watch in childhood shape the cognitive frameworks we use as adults?

Ten years later, Felix vividly describes scenes that helped him understand "That the way you live isn't the only way possible." Felix described objectivity and empathy. Peer filmgoer, Vincent, learned Arabic and now makes documentaries in the Middle East. Moritz learned Farsi to support his work with Deutsche Bahn in Iran—inspired by Iranian films he saw in childhood. Lu Lu describes how a bold female character inspires her until today. These aren't isolated cases. They're data points in a 50-year longitudinal study (the age of the Berlin Film Festival's section for young audiences, now called Generation) that no one intended to run until that same filmmaker discovered her hunches validated in cognitive science literature in grad school, namely Memory Psychologist David Pillemer's research and his book Momentous Events, Vivid Memories. She returned to capture evidence. 

Employers prize the learning and instincts that come from study abroad but only 2% of US students can afford to do it. Brian Rink was a lucky one – he studied abroad in Japan because the film he watched at eight years old, Chibideka monogatari (Terao, JP, 1958) or "Fatty and Skinny," had remained vividly in memory. The respondents in the Finding Felix Project are average Berliner kids, not of great wealth; still, they will show you how skillfully presented global cinema can serve as an equitable alternative to reach more learners. 122,000 young young people make valuable memories annually at the Berlin Film Festival. All we have to do is get more of those of those films here and provide guidance for their use. The National Science Foundation funded, Screen360.tv, a secure delivery model to implement the research, and it is eagerly ready to receive participants.

Katy Kavanaugh has been working on this problem for many years. She fostered five of the ten US festivals for young audiences (four in the Bay Area and one in Chicago), made short films, and served on several international juries including the Berlinale where she had encountered, Felix, the thoughtful kid who could be any and every kid. Fast forward, Stanford Graduate School of Education, the Stanford d.School and the National Science Foundation saw that potential, too. The model has been tested successfully with several groups in addition to K-12 learners, including pediatric patients, organizational team cohesion, and refugee orientation.

Why This Matters

Remember THE RED BALLOON (Lamorisse, FR, 1956)? That French film about a boy and his magical balloon floating through a colorless Paris? Ask around—it's the most common answer when Americans recall their first international film memory. Many can still picture that red balloon against the grey Parisian streets. That's the power of a cornerstone memory. And most of us only got one. Now imagine having dozens of them. From Japan, Iran, Sweden, Guinea, Norway, Italy, Poland, France. All before you turn 18. What kind of adult does that child become? Felix and his peers are showing us.

What The Science Says

Dr. David Pillemer, one of the world's leading experts on autobiographical memory, reviewed this project. His take?

"The idea of cornerstone memories of films, which influence the life course, is very intriguing and promising. It extends work on directive functions of autobiographical memory and also adds an interesting twist—the content is about someone else's life or imagery, not your own, yet is influential and memorable nevertheless."

Translation: The stories we absorb as kids—especially distinctive ones from cultures different from our own—become scaffolding for how we think, feel, and navigate the world as adults. A cornerstone memory of an experience that provided exercise in empathy, discernment, expression, language and location literacy becomes the foundation for instincts prized in further education, employment and innovation.

Stanford University, Freie Universität Berlin, and DAAD funded the research that started this project. The National Science Foundation awarded $295,000 to the partner platform Screen360.tv designed to scale these findings. Then federal funding got cut in 2025.

Right when we need this most.

Who This Helps

Parents: A framework for media choices that actually builds empathy and global awareness

Teachers: Evidence-based tool for cultural literacy that doesn't require field trip budgets

Filmmakers: Understanding of how young audiences process international stories—and why it matters

Festival Programmers: A working model with 50 years of proof

Anyone Who Cares About The Next Generation: A simple, accessible way to give kids the world's stories when their minds are most ready to build with them.

Why Now

Parents are asking: How do I raise kids who understand the world beyond our bubble?

Teachers are looking for tools that actually build empathy and cultural awareness without eating up budget or class time.

Filmmakers want audiences who can engage with stories from anywhere.

The evidence exists. The model works. The film is 90% done. Help us get it out the door.

Where We Are

We've captured:

• Felix, Vincent, Moritz, Lu Lu, Aissa ad Kahina across their teens and twenties
• Kids ages 6-18 at the Berlinale, experiencing films in real time
• Award-winning filmmakers and festival directors who curate these experiences
• Psychologists who can explain why it works
• American Embassy employees who wished they'd had this growing up
• Test screenings at Arsenal Kino Berlin and Hasso Plattner Institute
• Results of 2024 NSF study with students and teachers in the U.S. showing 30% increase in interest in other cultures

The foundation is solid. The story is powerful. The proof is undeniable.

What We Need To Finish

MINIMUM GOAL: $30,500

This gets the film completed and ready to share:

• Final edits with Felix, Vincent & Moritz, Aissa & Kahina, Greg Hochmuth, US filmmaker Daniel Patrick Carbone and more - Filmed in key Berlin locations that shaped their stories, showing the full arc of how film influenced their lives
• Essential film clip licensing - 8-10 clips from the international films they talk about (Swedish, Japanese, Iranian, Polish, Norwegian, Italian, Guinean, French cinema)
• Final picture and sound edit
• Color correction, HD enhancement, & DCP
• Legal consultation - Fair use guidance to maximize what we can include

STRETCH GOAL: $44,500

This creates the complete package for maximum impact:

• Educational materials - Study guides, curriculum support, resources for teachers
• Promotional materials - poster and cards
• Distribution Festival strategy - Submission and distribution planning, festival presence
• Extended legal support 

The Reality

This isn't just a documentary series, told in three parts. It's proof that we've been sitting on a solution to something parents and educators struggle with every day: How do we raise kids who understand that the way they live isn't the only way to live – with empathy? The answer has been hiding in plain sight at film festivals for nearly 50 years. Felix learned this. So did Vincent, Moritz, Greg, LuLu, Aissa and Kahina, as well as thousands of others in Berlin. Now we can make it intentionally.

In Memorium

Sadly, FINDING FELIX, took on an unexpected role. Designer Brian Rink, whose film memory story deeply energized this project and vividly illustrated an example of foreign film's potential, passed away in October 2025 after a long battle with cancer. When Brian first told me his story, he was very clear about the influence of the Japanese film he'd watched at age eight, FATTY AND SKINNY (Terau, JP, 1956) and unapologetic to other students in his Kyoto cohort whose inspirations for being in Japan were much loftier. His unwavering humility is what reads from his story. I captured his interview via video conference from Berlin in 2011 and later visited his office in Copenhagen. I'm very sorry that he will not see the power of his story take affect. I'm grateful to his sisters, Karen Kinrose and Shelley Rink, for filling in the story with more images and to Alex Castellarnau for making the initial introduction. This project cherishes being a repository of Brian's memory.