Funder: European Commission Project Code: 2020-1-FR01-KA201-080169
Funder Contribution: 134,024 EUR
We are Filmakers is a project that brings together formal and non-formale ducation actors from Greece, Spain and France to initiate a European ambition of cooperation in the field of film education as a challenge of European citizenship. We are Filmakers, which will last 13 months, is aimed at students aged 16 to 17, mobilises the teaching teams of 5 schools and brings together four international film festivals. It is structured around four key events taking place in Thessaloniki, Madrid, Cannes and Marseille.For digital natives, the overwhelming majority of information, leisure activities and creative investment is disseminated through screens, in the form of film stories. This reality influences considerably the construction of representations of the world and therefore of citizenship. We believe that simple image education is not enough to increase awareness and the development of critical thinking among students. There is a need for a greater articulation between the reception and creation of filmic narratives in order to enable students to increase their critical competence.European education systems have in factvariously taken up the issue of the construction of representations, of which the teaching of cinema is a formidable witness. Therefore, thanks to the exchange of practices, Jobshadowing sessions completed by exchanges with experts from outside the educational world, We are filmakers wishes to lay the first foundations for a harmonization of the practices of cinema/audio-visual teaching, to draw up the expectations and to enrich the respective pedagogies. We are Filmakers has two convictions, relevance we want to demonstrate.Firstly, the need for a European vision. Not only because awareness of the citizenship issue cannot be reduced to the national space, but also because We are Filmakers needs to be embodied in an ambitious project to support the efforts of students. The objectives communicated to them at the beginning of the project have a strong potential for valorization. To be able, at the end of the process, to be part of a jury of critics at an international film festival. And, to make a collective documentary and poetic film, based on three filming sequences in each of the countries. This work would be a metaphor for a shared cultural ambition of European citizenship.The second is that citizenship and culture require as soon as possible a shared work between formal and non-formal actors, in order to promote and multiply access to it and make a continuity of public in time and space. We are filmakers wants to be an accelerator of collaboration and bring schools/cultural organizations into the culture of co-teaching. To do this, it will actively associate three international film festivals (Thessaloniki, Madrid, Cannes and FID Marseille), as an educational film programmer and to supervise the production of the collective work by making film professionals available.This combination also responds to a professional perspective. The film industry and, more broadly, the audiovisual industry are growing and become a major source of opportunities. For students, festivals, through the density of the works shown and also the activity of their markets, testify to this reality and dynamism. Finally, for the territories concerned, festivals are also markers of identity and development. By associating them in the same project, the project feeds a possible synergy in terms of European inter-festival cooperation.Based on precise, qualitative and quantitative indicators, built on the contributions of the participants and supported by the state educational authorities, We are filmakers has multiple ambitions: educational, cultural, artistic, professional and territorial in the service of an active Europeancitizenship thanks to cinema.
