Education
Film still: Safiya The Movie, dir. Huibert van Wijk.
By reaching out to new schools and students—from primary school to secondary vocational education, and working out new programs and formats—from performances to podcasts, the Educational team reached beyond its ambition to find new connections with (potential) young visitors to convey and share the importance of documentaries.
“Keep it up; it's a great experience for children to dive completely into another life.”
A teacher at IDFA's School Screenings, in response to a survey sent by IDFA
Film still: An Intermission, dir. Edwin Mingard.
Q&A with Jessica Koek,
Education Employee at Fraterhuis Zwolle
Cinema Het Fraterhuis is Zwolle’s main venue for film and visual culture. With their ambitious school programs, they are one of the most active partners of IDFA’s education team. Jessica Koek is one of the driving forces behind the education program at Het Fraterhuis.
What were the education highlights with the IDFA program at Fraterhuis? In 2021 the education department of the Fraterhuis made a few big steps together with IDFA. We have been able to reach more MBO schools and students and have started partnerships with practical education. A good example is the program with the Aviation Services school, where stewards and flight attendants watch and discuss IDFA films in the context of citizenship. The great thing about this is that it’s a partnership with an entire school instead of one or two classes. This way we can really form long-term partnerships.
Did you introduce some positive changes this edition? Something that worked especially well this edition was the screening of a couple of short films, instead of one full-length documentary. It provoked more discussion afterwards, although some teachers still had to get used to this new approach. The true crime special also turned out very well and was well appreciated by the MBO students that followed the course. Many students even wanted to know how to watch the films afterwards.
How do you see your collaboration with IDFA? The collaboration with IDFA is very pleasant and accessible. The organizational and financial frameworks are clear for movie theaters. IDFA’s flexible attitude in 2021 was also greatly appreciated, especially with the ever-changing COVID-19 measures. In this way we are able to provide more tailor-made solutions for schools. We also want to expand the collaboration with secondary education institutions, in addition to maintaining what we have already achieved.
Marije Veenstra
Education Program Manager at IDFA:
“IDFA wants to broaden the horizon of young visitors by offering a program that is varied in subjects and artistic approach: Through documentaries, children and teens can dive into the world of another person, which allows them to reflect on the world and their own life. But besides the subjects addressed, we also try to find interesting and innovative ways to show them the whole spectrum of documentary and discuss aesthetic values. This edition, we did this by developing a few special programs that worked to find the right connection with students by drawing their attention and enriching their perspective on film by using other types of media and genres.
“For example, there was the podcast special: Sara's Mysteries, in which podcast maker Sara de Monchy took the children on an interactive podcast journey and unraveled a mystery together with the audience of nine to twelve-year-olds. Another example was a true crime special with filmmaker Loretta van der Horst. She developed an interactive program in which students analyzed the film language through different iconic true crime documentaries. For MBO students, we developed a film screening for students studying care and welfare—made possible thanks to the support of Fonds 21. The students watched a film related to their future work sector and discussed the topics afterwards with experts from the field.”
Sara de Monchy
Creator of the documentary podcast Sara’s Mysteries: “IDFA approached me at the Oorzaken festival, where I was performing my podcast project. That was a great opportunity to further develop the project and bring so many more children into the world of audio. IDFA's Education department really supported this, both in terms of production and content. A young maker like me wouldn't have been able to get such a big stage otherwise.
“The collaboration with IDFA has inspired me enormously, also because of the great interaction with all the children who asked the most detailed questions during the events at IDFA. So nice to see that they were completely enchanted by it.”
Sara de Monchy presents her documentary podcast Sara’s Mysteries during an IDFA School Screening. Photo by Jurre Rompa.
IDFA's education program is supported by Deloitte Impact Foundation, Fonds 21, inVision Subtitling BV, and the Special Friends+ of IDFA.