Espacio Abierto Quinta de los Molinos, a cultural centre dedicated to children and adolescents, will serve as one of the venues for the tenth edition of the Muestra Internacional de Cine Educativo MICE Madrid. This year’s festival aims to explore the creative universe of childhood and youth through a diverse national and international programme.
On 24 and 25 October, the festival will showcase short films created by children and young people from educational settings in countries including Argentina, Belgium, Slovenia, Spain, Italy, and Portugal. Additionally, professional filmmakers from Germany, Armenia, Croatia, Spain, Mexico, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Russia, and Sweden will present their animated and fiction short films. All screenings will be free of charge and will take place in continuous sessions.
The screenings by schoolchildren are scheduled for Saturday from 17:30 to 19:30 and Sunday from 12:30 to 14:30. In contrast, the professional sessions will run on Saturday from 12:30 to 14:30 and Sunday from 17:30 to 19:30.
The MICE Madrid programme also includes the workshop 'Una película, una imagen', designed to introduce younger audiences to the world of cinema. Participants, aged 8 to 12, will create their own film poster based on a short film they watch. This workshop will take place on 24 October, with a similar session for 4th, 5th, and 6th-grade students scheduled for the day before.
In November, Espacio Abierto will launch MICE+, a new series of film screenings and audiovisual creation workshops aimed at extending the experience of the MICE festival throughout the academic year. This initiative will transform Espacio Abierto into a cinema and school open to educational centres, children, adolescents, and families.
The MICE+ cycle will focus on discovering cinematic language through the reading and writing of images, combining film viewings with learning and experimentation in audiovisual creation techniques. Short films from the previous ten editions of the festival will be screened, featuring works by both professionals and young filmmakers, organised into thematic selections that complement the Espacio Abierto programme.
The first MICE+ session is set for 15 November, with additional screenings planned for 29 November, 30 and 31 January, 27 and 28 February, 3 and 4 April, 8 and 9 May, and 5 and 6 June. There will also be sessions from 1 to 31 July and from 1 to 12 September.
The workshops will provide opportunities to experiment with animation, moving images, sound, and filming techniques, encouraging participants to explore the expressive possibilities of cinema and create their own short audiovisual pieces. The first workshop, focusing on the dynamics of a film shoot, will take place on 27 November for school sessions, followed by another on the history of cinema on 4 December. A workshop on 'Film Animation with Geometric Shapes' is scheduled for 29 and 30 January 2027.
The MICE+ cycle will culminate in a celebration and an open exhibition of the cinematic works created throughout the year.
