“Kids are smart and creative and read between the lines,” says Noah Glenn, founder of the Like You Children’s Film Festival. “They probably know more than you think they know and understand more than you think they understand. This whole festival started on the idea that I, as an adult, can go to any film festival and have this really rewarding, enriching experience of engaging with independent cinema. I think for a lot of people, there’s this feeling that kids can just watch some cartoons and they’re cool with it. But I think kids are just as capable of appreciating the nuances of art and engaging with big ideas. They’re usually much more open-minded than adults are because they haven’t been stubbornly set in their ways yet.”
Last year, Glenn put his ideas into action with the first Like You Film Festival, which was held at the Pink Palace Museum’s Giant Screen theater. “We didn’t know what to expect last year,” says Glenn. “Now I think, a year later, we know how well things went, but we still don’t know what to expect!”
The Like You Film Club has been doing monthly screenings since last year’s festival, which have been steadily growing in audience numbers. Glenn says last year only about 30 people came to the festival’s first preview party; this year, that number ballooned to 200. “It was really rewarding to get to have those filmmakers in town, and to see something that started as a little idea, actually, being up on the big screen,” says Glenn.
The second Like You Film Festival will roll September 11th through 13th. New this year is an opening night party on Friday which starts “… kind of right after school,” says Glenn. “You can roll in, get some food, hang out, and then we’re showing Space Cadet, which is an animated film by Kid Koala.”
Kid Koala is an electronic musician turned director whose new film is based on his 2011 graphic novel. The music-driven, dialogue-free, 80-minute animation follows Celeste, an astronaut on her first mission who must leave the aging robots that raised her to go find her mother, who disappeared on a similar space mission years ago. “It’s kind of about that journey of finding your place in the world,” says Glenn. “I think it’s one that’s gonna resonate with a lot of people.”
The weekend continues with features and short film blocks for all ages. “We’ve got stuff for kids from toddlers to teenagers,” says Glenn. “Everybody’s ready for different things.”
One shorts program is for kids who have never been to a movie theater. “If your kids are two, three, four years old, and you’re nervous about, what are they gonna do if I take them to the movie theater? Bring them here. We designed a program for them. They can run around the room and wiggle, and talk and whatever. On the other end of the spectrum, we’ve got, this year, a block for tweens and teens — stuff that has some heavier, more mature topics or subject matter.”
The schedule, available at likeyoufilmclub.org, includes not just descriptions of each film’s story, but also a parent’s guide which includes age recommendations and details about the work’s emotional messages and content. The programming and content guides were created with the assistance of board members Becky Taylor, a third grade teacher at Idlewild Elementary, and Chris Reid, Director of Vision for Compass Community Schools. “I don’t want to bring my kid into something that they’re not ready for or would be a tough spot for them,” says Glenn. “But as a programmer, you don’t want to have to not program things that are tough, because for a lot of people, maybe that’s what they do need in that moment. We want to program things that create conversation, that help parents have difficult conversations. Films offer a softer entry point to have a conversation.”
For Glenn, those conversations are the point. “The mission of our nonprofit is supporting the emotional growth and the mental health of kids and families. So we try to be very aware that there’s a range of experiences with what people might be going through and what people are ready for and what people are hungry for, excited for.”
The Like You Children’s Film Festival runs September 11-13, 2026, at the Pink Palace Museum. The full schedule, passes, and tickets are available at likeyoufilmclub.org.
