Georgian schoolchildren learning filmmaking through EU-funded project

Hundreds of primary school students in Georgia are learning how to conceive and produce works of cinema art through a European Union-funded project involving remote classes.

Nearly 300 students at 40 schools across the country have been benefiting from The Film Corner - a programme led by the Milan-based Fondazione Cineteca Italiana and supported by other European institutions - amid the pandemic.

Adopted by the Georgian National Film Center as a new format for its own Cinema in School project, the programme sees students aged between 13-19 learning techniques for production and completing practical tasks.

The GNFC said the updated remote classes involved 17 film commissioners working with the schools to teach young participants how to create film shots and edit them, create characters, features of working with sound and work behind the lens, among other specifics.

[The Film Corner] is aimed to [...] [take] advantage of the opportunities offered by web 2.0 and crossmedia innovative approach in the digital era in order to raise the average film literacy level of EU young audiences" - The Film Corner project summary

The national cinema body is also working with partner professionals from abroad to create two mode applications within the programme, exploring propaganda in film and teaching art through cinema. The modules are expected to become available in Georgian starting in 2021.

Beside the Fondazione Cineteca Italiana The Film Corner also involves the Belgrade-based Yugoslav Cinémathèque, The Nerve Centre in Northern Ireland, The Film Space based in London, Milan's University of Milano-Bicocca, the Institute For The Development Of Film Culture in Ljubljana and the Tbilisi-based Georgian National Film Center.

Particularly aimed at "young and non-core audience", the project is designed to develop cinema literacy skills and thus contributing to young viewers'engagement with film as an art form.

The GNFC has run its Cinema in School programme since 2014 with support from the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of Georgia.