Film Education

Film Education

We look forward very much to an inquisitive young audience and many interesting discussions!

In the beginning is the dream, the idea, the thought. And where can you better dream than in the cinema? Where else can you immerse yourself so deeply in stories, travel to foreign countries and dare take a view (in the real sense of the word) at the world outside your own radius?

Strictly speaking, the cinema does not teach. But, in the best-case scenario, a particular film can feed back into the viewers’ lives, experiences, ideas and desires. Cinema as a school of sight, a school of empathy, a window to the world, a space for aesthetic education, a multiple sensory experience … these and similar descriptions are all available, assuming you wish (and indeed you should) to explain what the cinema as a place can give children and young adults.

In other words: school, OK, but beyond the school walls. Learning, OK, but beyond a curricular utility. The eight selections presented here may be understood primarily as an invitation to the poetry of the big picture on the big screen and, equally, as an invitation to take part in a lively exchange of views. Often enough, one’s own perspective will shift a bit
or expand a bit when one discovers what the person in the next seat happens to think, feel or rate. A least, this is what our experience in the course of fi lm discussions with school students in the past has repeatedly shown.

At times of competing cultural offers, with teachers perhaps being spoiled for choice, institutional partnerships are more important than ever. Well, the Dortmund | Cologne International Women’s Film Festival is in the fortunate  position of having on its side stalwart companions in the field of film studies: the Doxs! for Children and Young Adults, unlimited Cologne Short Film Festival and the jfc Media Centre / Cinepänz.

In association with doxs! dokumentarfilmfestival für kinder und jugendliche, unlimited Kurzfilmfestival Köln and jfc Medienzentrum