Education Today Education Today Magazine
For a school trip that’s educational, exciting, fun – and free – look no further than the Into Film Festival 2014, the world’s largest film festival for children and young people, taking place from to 4th to 21st November. Harnessing the power of film to captivate young minds and bring learning to life, a packed programme will seek to creatively involve 300,000 5-19 year-olds from all backgrounds and corners of the UK in watching and making films, many for the first time. Highlights will include exclusive premieres and previews of new feature films, free screenings, workshops, special events and Q&A sessions with industry experts, accompanied by innovative teaching resources.
The event will build on the success of last year’s festival, which saw over 200,000 young people attending over 1,300 special screenings and events across the UK. Renamed as the Into Film Festival, this annual celebration of film and education is made possible by support from the BFI, Cinema First, a wide collaboration with UK cinema industry partners and our festival delivery partners National Schools Partnership. Into Film is the film education programme for young people aged 5-19 across the UK funded by the BFI (British Film Institute) with National Lottery money.
Highlighting both the magic of cinema and the educational value of film, one of the festival’s key themes is the 25th Anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Included will be references to the Treaty — the right to a childhood (including protection from harm), the right to be educated, the right to be healthy, the right to be treated fairly and the right to be heard. In addition the festival will incorporate screenings, events and resources linked to Anti-Bullying Week, Parliament Week, World War I/Remembrance Day, and other campaigns and calendar events taking place within its duration.
Following consultations with educators across all four nations, the Festival will have clear learning outcomes that tie in with the UK’s respective curricula, support education and personal development, as well as help to build a lifelong passion for film. Subjects covered will include English, Maths, Science, Modern Foreign Languages, History, Geography and Music. Many of the titles screened will have multiple subject connections and additional links to the areas of PSHE, Citizenship, PE, ICT, DT, Art & Design and RE. Curriculum linked teaching resources or informal film guides containing synopses, discussion questions and links to other related titles will be provided alongside most films screened, promoting traditional and visual literacy, and facilitating further exploration of the films and the themes within them. Representatives from organisations such as Oxfam, The BeatBullying Group, The Refugee Council and The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust will contextualise relevant screenings with introductions and Q&A sessions. Discussions will also take place around issues such as film classification and copyright, with support from the British Board of Film Classification and other industry bodies.
With the aim of making the festival accessible to all young people including those in disadvantaged or remote areas — many of whom have never before visited a cinema — screenings will be held in over 500 cinemas across all the major chains, and a range of venues across the UK from the ICA in London and the Millennium Centre in Wales, to independent cinemas on the Shetland Islands and the Isle of Skye. Autism friendly screenings and, for sensory-impaired attendees, subtitling and audio-description, will add to inclusivity.
Workshops will be on offer to enable young people to learn about different aspects of filmmaking from creative professionals. Showcasing films made by young people will be an important element of the festival, with one or more youth made short films — selected by a team of young programmers — shown before every screening.
In a survey of last year’s festival, 92% of attending educators said they saw the broader educational benefits for their students and 71% said they were more likely to use film or cinema visits to support delivery of the curriculum.
The Into Film Festival 2014 will take place from 4-21 November. Bookings will go live at the beginning of September.
To register for regular updates on festival-related news, opportunities and resources visit http://www.intofilm.org/festival
