Film Literacy Lab: How to teach about film? (Conference report) The first edition of the international conference Film Literacy Lab dealing with film education was held in Prague on January 15. The event was initiated by Doc Alliance, a partnership of seven European documentary film festivals. Along with the exchange of film educational methods of the individual festivals, it also served as an introduction to the online educational platform Doc Alliance Academy. Speakers coming from various backgrounds shared their knowledge and expertise to start a creative dialogue on 'How to teach about film?' in the present-­‐
day cultural landscape. “Today’s children were born as digital natives and they are exposed to the media images from very early on, but they seldom have the adequate critical skills to interpret those images” – this is how Nina Numankadić, Managing Director of Doc Alliance Films, opened the first international conference Film Literacy Lab. Andrea Slováková, conference moderator and lecturer and methodological consultant of Doc Alliance Academy, further called attention to the importance of developing an “educated and critically thinking audience” which most often continues to be the responsibility of the non-­‐governmental sector. Together with the representatives of seven Doc Alliance festivals (Doclisboa, DOK Leipzig, Visions du Réel, FIDMarseille, Jihlava IDFF, CPH:DOX and Docs Against Gravity), a representative of Creative Europe Desk, the main supporter of Doc Alliance Academy, and a representative of Institut français joined the discussion about European film literacy. The first speaker, Anaïs Fontanel, the Head of European Affairs at Institut français, introduced the wide activities of the institute’s Cinema Department and put emphasis on their online platforms. IFcinéma offers an ambitious catalogue of French films available in 26 languages supported by pedagogical resources for schools. Whereas IFcinéma promotes and distributes online French cinema worldwide, the goal of the latest educational project CinED is to promote high quality European films for young audiences. The project is run in cooperation of seven European countries (France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic) aiming to develop a methodology together with educators who come from countries with different levels of film literacy. When asked whether the selected films would include documentaries, Fontanel replied that one of the 12 films planned for the 2016 catalogue will be a documentary and it is definitely encouraged to include them in the programme, but in many cases the partner institutions are reluctant to nominate from the genre. Representatives from Doclisboa, Amarante Abramovici and Cláudia Alves, address exactly this problem – the lack of proficiency of the educators – with one of their trainings called ”Teaching with and for Cinema”. The workshop centers on a screening of a national premiere from the festival’s programme followed by a meeting with the director to encourage dialogue between them. Also in choosing the film, the aim was to provoke the idea of the conceptions of documentary and to 1 make them see documentaries not just as a thematic tool but also as a cinematic form of expression. After talks and learning the basics of filmmaking, the teachers were provided with materials in hope that they could bring this knowledge to the classrooms and introduce the students to the ethics of documentary. As Abramovici said, to make the youth realize what is real and what is fake in a film helps them to be aware how images on TV or on the Internet can also be manipulative. Cláudia Alves has further explained the rationale behind her workshops with children: “We experiment with kids on how our perception creates our conception of the world.“ Just like Doclisboa, DOK Leipzig also focuses on artistic and creative documentaries (plus animation) although it could seem to be an obstacle to use these films for educational purposes. Luc-­‐Carolin Ziemann, Head of DOK Education, thinks it is indeed challenging to engage students but it could lead to positive changes, as their audiences are getting younger every year, which could be the outcome of these initiatives. ”Even children can watch an experimental documentary if you prepare them well and if you teach them to see,“ said Ziemann. Dok Spotters is run during the festival and offers teenagers an opportunity to participate in the event as journalists and develop their critical skills. DOK Education, which is a year-­‐round programme, offers screenings for schools. Prior to watching the films, a preparation with the teachers and an introductory lesson on the topic and boundaries between fiction and documentary seems to be necessary. Ziemann agrees that there could be different levels of competences between age groups, but she also echoes the previous speakers, saying that sometimes teachers are even worse readers of documentaries. That is why she proposes more direct communication between the festivals and the schools to exchange ideas about the educational materials. Philippe Clivaz and Christian Georges from Visions du Réel shared the Swiss perspective on film literacy with the audience, firstly by summarizing the cultural context. In theory there is a space for film in the official curriculum and the educational plans are quite ambitious but sometimes they are not quite realistic. Most often there is only one weekly lesson or less and there is a lack of sufficient training for teachers. The offers from film festivals, on the other hand, are quite wide and can complement the school system education. Nevertheless, Christian Georges admits: “Teachers are very much content oriented and we always have to make a compromise between content and artistic value when selecting films.“ Visions du Réel attempts to combine theory and practice and has workshops both for children and teachers. REFLEX is a film festival focusing on students and together with the Magic Lantern, they also organize documentary-­‐making workshops with the help of professionals. Everybody can make films with their mobile phones now. At these workshops, students get familiar with the film language, learn how to critically present a topic and learn more about the consequences of their choices. “The theory and the practice are inseparable,” said Christian Georges. Anaelle Bourguignon and Céline Guénot presented the newest addition to the existing activities of FIDMarseille. Last year they introduced the High School Awards, which selected motivated teenagers coming from different backgrounds to form a Student Jury during the festival. The students were treated as any other jury and they felt that they had a real responsibility to choose a winner as there was a prize involved. This motivated them to develop a sense how to express their feelings about films and how to back up their opinion. Their selection was surprising as Céline Guénot observed: “The high school jury’s taste was quite unpredictable: films we thought they might find too difficult, they loved.” Judging from their feedback, Céline Guénot feels that the experience “changed the way how they care about and watch films.“ 2 Šimon Bauer and Tereza Swadoschová introduced the educational programmes of Jihlava IDFF. The Media and Documentary creative writing seminar is aimed at university student of films studies and journalism to support quality media reflection on documentary cinema as it is rarely an agenda in the mainstream media in the Czech Republic. The students take part in a 5-­‐day workshop during the festival, getting acquainted with various types of journalism and perspectives on documentary. The Documentary Film Centre works all year long and one of their fields of activity is to bring documentary to the school curriculum and for this they developed one time lectures as well as cycles dedicated to larger topics. As Šimon Bauer explained, “The key issue is to teach students and children how to ask critical questions regarding documentaries and other audiovisual media connected to ”reality.” The right question will lead them to find an appropriate answer themselves and to further move their level of understanding.” Marie Ørbæk Christensen from CPH:DOX impressed everybody by the festival’s scope of activities and the numbers of participants involved in their educational programmes. UNG:DOX provides an opportunity for high school students to participate in the festival and DOX:ACADEMY is a 3-­‐day course for university students to introduce them to special films and the filmmakers themselves. Last year marked the start of the Everyday storytelling project which aims “to engage ordinary people and explore extraordinary stories.” Everyday is an online interactive video platform inviting people to contribute by their own stories to the otherwise controlled media landscape. The platform curates themes and introduces new current topics and also organizes offline workshops and seminars. Jacek Wasilewski, a lecturer at University of Warsaw who collaborates closely with Docs Against Gravity Film Festival and their programme Akademia Dokumentalna (Academy of Documentary) demonstrated one of his lessons on media and propaganda which approaches films from an interdisciplinary perspective, using cognitive science, neuroscience and poststructuralism. The approach is based on a theorem that “truth is constructed as a part of narration.” On the example of a film dealing with ecological propaganda (All of Us Guinea Pigs Now?), the lesson encourages viewers to self-­‐observation and dealing with questions of how the film impacts our attitudes and how we are looking for confirmation of our attitudes. The conference ended on a high note, with the speech of Letizia Trunfio, who is representing the Audience Development and Film Literacy department at Creative Europe – MEDIA programme. She encouraged the participants especially from smaller countries to apply for support as the programme ultimately looks for diversity in European cinema. Andrea Slováková closed the conference with a speech summarizing all presentations, pointing out the main issues to be further discussed and elaborated on within the Doc Alliance Academy project or any other international project oriented on film literacy. The criteria to select films for film educational projects differ very much according to the aims (talking about content, formulating the topic, recognizing the author’s intentions, analyzing creative work with means of expression and creative strategies of the authors). An interdisciplinary approach is sometimes necessary as the teachers come from different fields and sometimes serves as a tool facilitating discussions about film with experts from different fields. Teachers are a difficult part of the educating chain in almost all countries and we need to maintain a dialogue with them, to educate them, to precisely work with them. In most of the countries, teachers‘ input and feedback are part of the process of creating the methodologies. Optional courses are the prevalent model at schools, however, several countries have film education as a part of the official curriculum. Finally, Andrea Slováková pointed out some 3 of the inspirations that have an important but sometimes not much reflected impact: 1) discussions with the directors or other creative professions active in the filmmaking process can also have a reverse effect – they not only help to educate children but also filmmakers themselves, 2) participating in student juries organized within professional international film festivals can change the way young people perceive films, 3) creative work with different target groups than just students and teachers, for example with youngest children and elderly people, can contribute to the development of intergenerational relations. 4