Exploring Cinéma, cent ans de jeunesse

• Duration: 2022 – 2024
• Project lead: Dr. Bettina Henzler

The research and evaluation of long-term film-aesthetic educational processes

Team: Dr. Bettina Henzler

Funding: EU (Erasmus+)

From 2022 to 2024, the University of Bremen has been a partner in the international film education project Le cinéma, cent ans de jeunesse, funded by the European Union within the framework of Erasmus+. The focus is on a comparative study of the educational processes and mediation work in school classes from different European countries participating in the project – in addition to Germany and France, Bulgaria and Portugal are also involved. In the cooperation between educators, artists, cultural workers and scientists, the approach of aesthetic film education realised in this project is to be further developed and made accessible to a broader public as well as to research. The overarching goal is to develop interdisciplinary perspectives for researching long-term film-aesthetic educational processes that can also inform educational policy decisions. In keeping with its name, which translates as “The cinema, a hundred years young”, Le cinéma cent ans de jeunesse, was launched in 1995 to mark the centenary of cinema. The initiators were Nathalie Bourgeois, then head of the educational service of the Cinémathèque française, and Alain Bergala, internationally renowned film scholar and author, whose relevant essay “The Cinema Hypothesis. Teaching Cinema in the Classroom and Beyond” was translated into German as part of the “Bremer Schriften zur Filmvermittlung”. The project implements the approach of film education formulated in the essay, which combines an analytical examination of works from film history with artistic practice. Students of all ages and from all types of schools work together with their teacher and an artist for a year on a formal question, which they approach by viewing and comparing film excerpts, camera exercises and finally making their own film. Throughout the project, there is an exchange between the adults involved – teachers, cultural and film professionals from over 10 countries. In Germany, classes from Berlin (project partner Deutsche Kinemathek) and Frankfurt am Main (project partner Deutsches Filmmuseum & Filminstitut) take part. The highlight is the annual closing event in Paris, where the pupils present their films to each other. The project thus represents a joint learning and exploration process for all participants. The Erasmus+ project, initiated by the Deutsches Filmmuseum & Filminstitut Frankfurt am Main, enables the continuation and further development of Le cinéma cent ans de jeunesse, which makes an important contribution to inclusion and intercultural understanding, especially in view of increasing social divisions and renationalisation tendencies. For the University of Bremen, this cooperation enables a continuation of the focus on film education that Dr Bettina Henzler developed together with Prof Dr Winfried Pauleit as part of her many years of work at the Institute for Art Studies-Film Studies-Art Education. Bettina Henzler’s dissertation, which is dedicated to the mediation approach realised in “Le cinéma cent, ans de jeunesse” from a cultural-historical and theoretical perspective, has been published by Schüren Verlag (Marburg 2013) under the title “Filmästhetik und Vermittlung”.