I have discovered many new facts and rediscovered many colleagues and friends of old from the ECFA ‘family’ a term coined by NFI moderator Ivar Kohn. Discovery, it turns out has evolved to work with school audiences independently and unknowingly sharing many of the practices utilised by Ale Kino Director, Jerzy Moskowitz. Which is encouraging , as Ale Kino Festival, Poznan, Poland, has been around since 1969 and under Jerzy’s directorship have doubled their schools audience to 7,000. In view that there are 250 schools in the Ale Kino Festival catchment region, and Discovery has only a fraction of that, our 3.5 thousand Festival audience last year after just five years all of a sudden sounds like more of an achievement than I had realised. The efficient and attractive (very important for teachers) presentation by Jerzy bullet pointing all their best practice points has been the day’s highlight, bolstered by frequent references to good things going on in Scotland via the new curriculum by Dr Mel Gibson http://www.dr-mel-comics.co.uk re graphic novels and the manga anime genre as a really great way in to multi modal learning. We will be seeing Dr Mel in Dundee before long as she has given me all sorts of ideas for Discovery 09 programme. She is the best kind of educationalist, with a real passion for her field.
The only slight disappointment was the still vague sense of our EU godfathers not quite catching up with the huge and complex needs of our large and complex ECFA family of festivals, film institutes, distributors and educationalists. Media representative Niels was charming and his presentation very well executed. Just nothing really there to satisfy the appetite of the ECFA membership, who share a real need to get schools understanding the value of film as the magnificent teaching resource that it can be. At the ECFA conference we heard many ideas how to effect this common goal.
Here are my notes from the presentation of Norwegian Niels B Bekkhus – Assistant programme manager MEDIA European Media Literacy speaking about his contribution in writing up the EU approach to media literacy in a digital environment, published end of 2007.
Consulting with a Media Literacy expert group from across member states and backgrounds. There is also a Digital Literacy group. Niels suggested they should perhaps merge. The consultation process was found to be both quantitatively and qualitatively successful. Basically, they came up with the 3C’s that we have in the UK already (opportunities to Create, Cultural access and Critical skills) Good practice examples – Film X (DFI) and FIS (Film in School, IADT, Dublin)
If you haven’t already devoured the policy objectives – http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/media_literacy/ec_com/index_en.htm
Finally the big breakthrough was unveiled. At a recent Slovenain summit it was agreed that they think that there might potentially be the possible move forward towards an opportunity to discuss the planning of the next stage of the implementation of the process through which funding might be possible, potentially.
We have a little longer to wait but essentially sustenance is on the way, I guess. JH
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