The European Children Film Association was established 35 years ago as an initiative of a handful of people from around Europe; today it is a lively professional organization with over 160 members around the world. The association has been at the forefront of advocating for better and more film education, recognising that films (and other audiovisual material) play an important role in shaping the minds and perspectives of young people. ECFA believes that film education should be an essential component of the overall education of children and young people. Its member organizations promote access to quality films and film workshops in order to create a rich learning experience for children and young people, thereby fostering their creativity, critical thinking, and cultural awareness.
The ECFA member organizations that are active in the field of film education employ a highly creative spirit, usually based on modest resources. Most of their activities are meant to have local impact and overall, they are diverse in terms of cultures and languages. Film education professionals rarely have the opportunity to see what their colleagues are doing in other environments, learn from their peers and exchange experiences and best practices.
Our initiative to organize the Workshop Warehouse started from the point of view of film education professionals who are curious to see their peers’ work. The goal was to create an opportunity through an event that will bring together film workshop instructors from around Europe; they will take on the role of child participants in order to experience colleagues’ workshops from their perspective. We wanted this immersive experience to enable film education professionals to better understand the needs and perspectives of young people and to design more effective film workshops themselves. We also wanted to facilitate exchanges and invitations of film education professionals to other countries and events. In our opinion, this will help to raise the general level of awareness and knowledge around film education in Europe today. The workshops cover a wide range of topics and techniques, but the event also provides an opportunity for networking and collaboration among film education professionals.
One of the first issues we had to tackle during the preparation of the event was to find a proper location for it. The ECFA is a voluntary organization, and although we had decided to invest part of our reserve funds in this event, the human resources needed to produce such a broad event were not available. We had to look for prospective partners and we were lucky enough to have the Cineteca di Bologna come on board this wonderful journey – something that would not have been possible without the dedication of Elisa Giovannelli, former ECFA Board member and lead of Cineteca’s Schermi e Lavagne (Educational Department).
Schermi e Lavagne has taken over the production on the ground, and the Cineteca has contributed significantly to the overall event budget as part of Il Cinema Ritrovato 2023.
ECFA’s mission aligns well with the festival’s emphasis on film history, which serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving and promoting the art of cinema. The Workshop Warehouse initiative seems to us at the ECFA a natural extension of the festival’s general mission, as it seeks to nurture the next generation of filmmakers and film enthusiasts. Through our synergy in this event, we intend to provide an essential platform for film education professionals to learn, collaborate, and innovate, thereby enriching the film education landscape across Europe. We hope that this first event will be followed by more – and it’s up to the film education community to provide for this to happen!