AHUB WEBINAR: What makes animated films for children good?
Join Animation HUB’s first webinar:
18 November 2026, 10:00–11:00 CET
Speaker: Ivana Laučíková, Slovakia
Child audiences are remarkably malleable and diverse. Children’s thinking and psychological needs develop so rapidly in the first years of life that their expectations as viewers change roughly every two to three years. At the same time, animated film is the dominant audiovisual medium for children under the age of seven. So what makes a film for children good – and why is it not enough for it to be colourful and entertaining?
In children’s filmmaking, lecturer Ivana Laučíková considers it essential to understand two things:
- Children’s thinking. A good film is one the child understands, rather than one they watch passively, held only by the magnetism of moving images. The creative team must adapt the language of film to the developmental capacities of children’s thinking.
- Child psychology. A good film is one that strengthens the child psychologically and benefits them. The creative team must therefore know and meet the child’s psychological, emotional and social needs.
The first part of the webinar traces the development of children’s thinking according to Jean Piaget’s theory – from the sensorimotor stage of toddlers, through the magical world of preschoolers, to the onset of abstract thinking and a realistic perception of the world around the age of ten.
The second part addresses the needs for safety, love, self-realisation and social belonging, and how films from Peppa Pig to My Life as a Zucchini can strengthen them.
Ivana Laučíková studied animation at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava (VŠMU), where she is an associate professor, heads the Animation Department and teaches courses in animation directing and theory. As an author and producer, she is behind award-winning films such as The Last Bus (2011), which won numerous international awards and was the first Slovak animated film to qualify for Academy Award consideration. From 2010 to 2014 she was editor-in-chief of Homo Felix, a journal dedicated to animated film.
She is the co-creator of the animated children’s series Lesná päťka (The Forest Five), produced by the Slovak studio Fool Moon. The series was developed in collaboration with the Methodological Centre of the Ministry of Education and with experts in children’s emotional development. During the webinar, Laučíková will use Lesná päťka as a case study to demonstrate how theoretical knowledge can be applied in practice.
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