08-05-2015

International Conference on Film and Media Education

By Anna Wereda

    WARSAW: The international conference ‘Film and media education in Poland and the world – systemic solutions and case studies’, which was organized by the Polish Film Institute and Centre for Open and Multimedia Education, took place at the Library of the University of Warsaw on the 6 and 7 May 2015. The event was sponsored and supported by the University of Warsaw, Creative Europe Desk Poland, Eureka Media Ltd, 3D Mind Films Ltd.

    The openingspeeches were held by: prof Jan Madey (Representative of the University of Warsaw, Rector for Media Education), Anna Sienkiewicz-Rogowska (Representative of the General Director of the Polish Film Institute, Head of the Department of Film Culture Dissemination and Promotion), Aleksandra Leszczyńska (Coordinator Creative Europe Desk Poland).

    In the beginning Krzysztof Kopczyński from the University of Warsaw and Eureka Media announced the conference’s goals and objectives. Practitioners from more than a dozen countries, including England, Australia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Dubai, USA, shared their personal filming experiences. The main objective of the conference was to become closely acquainted with creative solutions in the field of media education in other countries and to be able to apply them in Poland.

    The topic of the first panel was “Film education authoring curriculums”. Several experts took the floor in the discussion, among them were: Ian Wall (Towards a European Framework for Film Education), Wojciech Lorenc (Teaching Emerging Internet Media and Associated Creative Practices at the University of Hawaii West O'ahu), Michelle Ciulla Lipkin (State of Media Literacy Education in the United States), Marcin Skorek (Kinoszkoła – as an example of film edu programme. Aims, practice, cooperation with schools and local government institutions), Susanne Wad (Station Next, Denmark - The story behind the film school for young people). Second part was about film education and festivals. The presentations were delivered by: Joanna Łapińska (New Horizons for Film Education), Susanne Prahl (The experiences in film education of Kid`s festival), Jain Deepak (An innovative approach to film education of Children`s International Film Festival in United Arab Emirates), Olena Kutsenko (Docudays UA International Documentary Human Rights Film Festival) Luc-Carolin Ziemann (Asking for a second gaze - The Film Education at DOK Leipzig).

    A screening of shortfilms made by children was held in the cinema "Rejs" at the end of the first day of the conference.

    On 7 May the first part of the conference focused on local initiatives related to film education. Bernard McCloskey (Northern Ireland) and Nuria Aidelman (Barcelona), Roger Dunscombe (Australia), Pavel Bednarik (Czech Republic) Aneta Ozorek (Poland) and polish film educator Dr. Martin Skorek from Tychy, presented their views on the matter.

    The conference was closed by guests from Lebanon (Lubna Malliki), Pakistan (Daniyal Ali Khan) and Ukraine (Olena Kutsenko). They delivered their presentations about the role of film and film education in a threat situation of war.

    You can find most of the presentations on http://www.come.uw.edu.pl/peam/.

    Click HERE to get the publication in pdf.