A Memphis film festival built around teaching kids emotional resilience is coming back to the Pink Palace Museum's Giant Screen Theater this weekend, September 11 through 13, and organizers say interest has grown fast since its debut less than a year ago. The Like You Children's Film Festival will open Friday night with Space Cadet, a dialogue-free animated feature about an astronaut searching for her missing mother, followed by two more days of shorts and features programmed for ages ranging from toddlers to teenagers.
The festival was founded by Noah Glenn, whose Like You Film Club carries a mission of supporting the emotional growth and mental health of kids and families, according to Memphis Flyer. The first Like You Children's Film Festival took place in 2025, and as the Flyer reports, the opening-night preview party for this year's event has already seen attendance climb to about 200 people, up from roughly 30 at last year's preview gathering. That inaugural festival ran November 22 and 23, 2025, at the Pink Palace Museum before organizers shifted the 2026 edition to an early-September weekend, according to WKNO FM.
An Opening Night Film With International Pedigree
This year's opening-night feature carries some serious festival credentials. Space Cadet made its world premiere in the Generation Kplus competition at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2025, per the Berlinale. The 80-minute, dialogue-free film was directed by Kid Koala, an electronic musician turned director, and is based on his 2011 graphic novel, per the Flyer's account. In the story, Celeste, an astronaut on her first mission, must leave behind the aging robots that raised her as she searches for her mother, who disappeared on a similar space mission, the Flyer notes.
The film's soundtrack adds another layer of appeal beyond its plot. Original songs come from Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Mariana “Ladybug Mecca” Vieira of Digable Planets, layered alongside an original score composed by Kid Koala himself, according to the Toronto International Film Festival. That same account notes that Kid Koala drew stylistic inspiration from silent-film icons like Charlie Chaplin to convey complex emotional themes without a single line of dialogue.
Programming Built Around Difficult Conversations
Beyond the opening-night showcase, the festival's full slate includes features and short-film blocks for all ages, a block for tweens and teens covering more mature topics, and a shorts program aimed at children who have never been to a movie theater before, per the Flyer. Glenn told the Flyer that the festival began from the idea that children can appreciate independent cinema, and that kids are smart and creative, reading between the lines even when a film doesn't spell everything out. He said the goal is to create conversation and help parents navigate difficult conversations with their children.
To back that mission up, the festival's schedule includes film descriptions and a parent's guide with age recommendations and emotional-content details, according to the Flyer's reporting. Becky Taylor, a third-grade teacher at Idlewild Elementary, and Chris Reid, director of vision for Compass Community Schools, assisted with the festival's programming and content guides, the Flyer reports. The opening-night party itself is scheduled to start after school on Friday.
From a Mindfulness Podcast to a Nonprofit Film Club
Glenn's path to founding a film festival ran through children's mental wellness media rather than the movie business. He launched the children's podcast Like You: Mindfulness for Kids in 2020, using breathing exercises, affirmations, and original music to teach social-emotional learning skills, according to Teach901. That outlet notes the podcast earned national recognition on platforms including Apple Podcasts and Common Sense Media before Glenn expanded his work into cinema.
Glenn also has a long civic résumé in Memphis. He served on the creative launch team for the civic project Choose901 in 2012 and directed the award-winning short film The Devil Will Run before founding the Like You Film Club, according to Choose901. The Like You Film Club has since conducted monthly screenings since 2025, per the Flyer, and the organization officially received tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit status as a Memphis-based arts and cultural organization in August 2025, according to ProPublica's nonprofit database.
Screen Time Concerns Loom Over the Festival's Mission
The festival's emphasis on shared, intentional viewing arrives against a backdrop of national concern over how young people consume media. In December 2021, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a public health advisory warning of a national youth mental health crisis, citing widespread increases in adolescent depression, anxiety, and emotional distress, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A separate 2023 Surgeon General advisory found that up to 95 percent of teens ages 13 to 17 use social media, with over a third reporting near-constant use, per the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which noted the advisory called for community efforts to maximize positive social connection while minimizing screen-related harms.
According to the Tennessee Department of Health's “Suicide Prevention in Tennessee” page, the 2023 Tennessee Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that 42.7% of high school students reported feeling sad or hopeless, a 5.2% increase.
The venue hosting this year's festival brings its own scale to the event. The Pink Palace Giant Screen Theater features a 40-foot-tall screen and is one of only three theaters in the world equipped with a moveable screen able to accommodate lectures and multi-format presentations, according to the Memphis Museums of Science & History. The festival returns to that same Pink Palace Museum location this year, per the Flyer's reporting, even as the museum system works through a leadership transition. Hoodline previously reported that MoSH's board kicked off a search for a new chief after former CEO Kevin Thompson's exit at the end of 2025, though operations across MoSH properties, including the Giant Screen Theater, have continued uninterrupted.
The City of Memphis's 2016 Fiscal Year Adopted Operating Budget included rehabilitation of the Pink Palace Planetarium and Museum alongside improvements to various other city parks. City planning records describe the Pink Palace site as bordering a private single-family residential property to the north and the Memphis Museum of Science and History/Pink Palace to the south.
Tickets and passes for the September 11 through 13 festival are available at likeyoufilmclub.org, according to the Flyer's report on the weekend's lineup.
