If you’re searching for a key English literature text expressed in a language that pupils can really relate to, then it’s hard to beat film. For the past 14 years that has been the message of Film Education, a body funded by UK film distributors, cinemas and the British Film Institute. Today sees the launch of the organisation’s fifth National Schools Film Week, a UK-wide event that promotes cinema for its own sake and for education.
Screenings and events aimed at primary and secondary pupils range from the Aardman Animations tour - the award-winning animators are travelling the country to explain how a feature such as Chicken Run (pictured) is put together - to curriculum-targeted screenings of Shakespearian adaptations and foreign language films. Here are some of the highlights of the week, which runs from October 6-13.
Primary Animation Screenings of Chicken Run, followed by presentations by the animators.
Shakespeare Aimed at years 5 and 6. The films are Love’s Labour’s Lost, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet.
Secondary Documentary Films include this year’s Oscar winner, One Day in September, and When We Were Kings. They are followed by presentations or Qamp;A sessions.
World Cinema The line-up includes ShowMe Love (Sweden), All About My Mother (Spain) and La Buche (France).
Preview films These include Grey Owl, which will be introduced by Lord Attenborough, and Terence Davies’s House of Mirth. Call 020 7930 3829 or check www.filmeducation.org for more details.
Film Studies Resources These include:
* Moving Images in the Classroom, a guide published by the BFI aimed at key stages 3 and 4. Available from the BFI. Tel: 020 7957 4787. May also be downloaded from www.bfi.org.uk * Entertaining the Nation, a primary pack providing an introduction to early cinema, radio and television. pound;6.95 from BFI.
* Introduction to the Cinema, five illustrated guides covering the Western, Cinema India, the First Moving Pictures, Silent Pioneers, and Hollywood 1939. pound;6 from the BFI.
Websites Film Education: www.filmeducation.org
British Film Institute: www.bfi.org.uk
National Museum of Photography, Film and Television: www.nmpft.org.uk
The Bill Douglas Centre for the History of Cinema and Pop Culture: www.ex.ac.ukbill.douglas. History of film from the early days,named after the late film-maker.
Internet Movie Database: us.imdb.com. More than 120,000 movies searchable by genre, director, title and year. Jane Ann Purdy
