In January and February 2014, twelve Palestinian schools are hosting “The School Film Festival” (SFF), a student-run film festival showcasing short and contemporary Arab and Palestinian films, targeting neighbouring schools and local communities. SFF is organised as part of the “Cinema in Education” Project by Qattan Centre for Educational Research and Development (QCERD) at A. M. Qattan Foundation.
Seventeen short films, including “Atfal al-Hijara” by George Khleifi and “Ru’ous Dajaj” by Bassam al-Jirbawi, have been selected for the festival. The films demonstrate the children’s first encounter with the world of adults, and the principles associated with it, where they find themselves forced to make decisions that would decide the course of their future. The films are intended to get children to explore and challenge principles and beliefs from their daily life, and to communicate their opinions and thoughts to the target audience.
School students from eighth, ninth and tenth grades were responsible for organising all aspects of the Film Festivals, from selecting the films, planning and screening logistics, to defining the target audience. Through this process, students were opted to utilize different tools which helped them build an analytical and critical awareness in regards to the cinematic language, symbols and meanings.
In September and November of last year, QCERD conducted preparatory workshops for both teachers and students enrolled in the project to help them acquire basic skills of cinematic analysis. The workshops included film screenings, discussions and lectures on aspects of cinema.
The “Cinema in Education” Project stems from QCERD’s belief in the importance of cinema as a source of knowledge, imagination and inspiration, as well as being an enabling tool to learn about ones-self and other cultures. The project aims at exploring the potentials of cinema within the classroom as a subject by itself as well as in relation to other subjects in the curriculum. It aspires to offer a parallel language that is unfortunately not given the attention it deserves in education.