Cinemas, archives and festivals
Education in film festivalsFilm Festivals by their nature offer one-off, sometimes never to be repeated, chances to see brand new (or very old) films, often alongside some of the people responsible for making them.
Film Festivals by their nature offer one-off, sometimes never to be repeated, chances to see brand new (or very old) films, often alongside some of the people responsible for making them.
The European Children’s Film Association (ECFA) has a comprehensive website of film festivals, divided into three types: original children/ young people’s film festivals; film festivals with sections devoted to children and young people; and festivals for films made by young people. There are 203 film festivals across all categories on their site (as of December 2019). The list also identifies competitive and non-competitive festivals.
Film festivals offer big screen experiences to their chosen audiences, which are educational in themselves. But most also offer some kind of additional education programme - activity that focuses on interpretation, understanding, maybe even creative engagement with the films in the programme itself. As an additional reflection, we have included a piece by Menis Theodoridis, on the pedagogic value of film festivals, which you can download here.
As an example of a children’s film festival, watch this trailer from the Taartrovers Film Festival (Taartrovers means ‘the cake stealers’!). Taartrovers runs in three cities in the Netherlands, and was until recently known as The Fantastic Children’s FIlm Festival.
For this task we ask...
How much of the activity in the trailer is recognisable as ‘film education activity’?
How is the film or cinema experience mediated for younger children?
How much of the festival activity would translate into activities with older children, young people, or adults?
Use this notepad feature to write down answers and your thoughts to questions posed throughout this resource.
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