The Little Bear International Film Festival has announced the full program for 2026

The International Family Film and Animation Festival "Little Bear", which will be held in Perm from May 29 to June 1, presented the full program. The competition and non-competition posters included 38 films and animation projects from Russia, Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. This year, the festival enhances its international status: the program features paintings from Poland, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Denmark, Germany, Mexico, China, France, the Netherlands, Pakistan and South Africa.

The organizers note that the festival retains its focus on family films, but significantly expands the genre range — from classic animation and teen adventures to original teen dramedies and feature films that raise social issues. The 2026 program features both major Russian premieres and international releases that have not previously been widely released in Russia.

"This year, we have created perhaps the largest program in the history of the festival. It includes various projects: animation, teen movies, family series. It is important for us that “Little Bear” becomes a platform where strong Russian family cinema and foreign works meet. In terms of the number of premieres and the geography of participants, the festival is reaching a new level in 2026," said Alyona Semerikova, general producer of the festival.

Among the Russian premieres are the family comedy "Baby Nurse" directed by Maxim Maksimov with Eva Smirnova and Milana Khametova, the adventure film "Space Masha" directed by Nikita Vladimirova. A separate block will be made up of projects aimed at a teenage audience, including the films "Mi's Double Life", "Your Heart will be Broken" and "Another World".

"There are three big changes in this year's program. Firstly, the screenings of several foreign films will become literally unique: these films have no distributors in Russia. Secondly, the main competition combined cartoons and films, and this allows us to intertwine their plots and restore the integrity of children's perception of cinema. Thirdly, there are no paintings that have already been released in the main competition since this year. Perm residents will see either world, Russian, or regional premieres. This means that many discoveries await them!", said Egor Moskvitin, Program Director of the film festival.

This year, the festival has also strengthened the Russian block of TV series and franchises: viewers will be shown new seasons of the projects "Curious Varvara" (the project was created with the support of Iran), "Daddy's Daughters. New" and the premiere of the series "Malachite".

International animated films make up a significant part of the program, and festival viewers will be able to see new family projects from different countries, many of which will be presented exclusively in Russia for the first time. Among the foreign projects are the Polish animation "Move your feathers!", the Spanish cartoon "Animal Hallucination" and the Mexican animation project "I am Frankelda".

In 2026, the film festival program includes four areas — the main competition, "Almost adults", "Animated series" and "TV Series". The festival screenings will be held in Perm at the Cinema 5 cinema in the Aimall Esplanade shopping center at 73A Petropavlovsk Street.

The full program of the "Little Bear" film Festival is available on the website.

In addition to the main festival in Perm, screenings will take place on the territory of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, in Belgorod and on the territory of the Lugansk People's Republic in the city of Alchevsk.

For the second year in a row, the International Festival of Children's, Family Films and Animation "Medvezhonok" has been supported by the BEAC.

Igor Chepenkov, Managing Director of Sberbank's Perm branch: "Sberbank has traditionally supported significant cultural projects, and the Medvezhonok Film Festival occupies a special place among them. We are glad to see how its geography is expanding from year to year and the number of participants is growing, and the program is finding more and more response from the family audience. We are confident that Little Bear will retain its reputation as a platform for lively creative dialogue, the promotion of high-quality content and the development of family cinema."

The Medvezhonok International Festival of Children's, Family Films and Animation will be held in Perm with the support of the Commissioner for Children's Rights under the President of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. The program directorate of the fourth festival was supplemented by a program producer, who became the commercial director of the START group of companies, producer Georgy Shabanov.

Partner support was provided by Okko, Soyuzmultfilm film studio, <url>, Mult TV channels, CTC and Cerberus Company.

The organizers of the festival are the Perm Film Commission (ANO "Center for the Development of Film Production") with the support of the Government of the Perm Region and personally the Governor of the Perm Region Dmitry Makhonin, as well as the Ministry of Culture of the Perm Region.

The president and ideologist of the film festival is the general producer of Okko, Gavriil Gordeev, and the general producer is Alyona Semerikova.