Margret Albers – European Children's Film Association

The time has come: Register for the Workshop Warehouse!

Registration for our special trade fair in which educators will actively participate and inspire each other with creative ideas is open until March 15th. To ensure the best workshop experience, places are limited – therefore: don’t hesitate and fill in the form

For the first time ECFA organizes, in cooperation with the Cineteca di Bologna in the frame of the festival Il Cinema Ritrovato, an event dedicated to film education professionals from all over Europe.

Ten workshops, developed by as many organizations, will be set up, focusing on different aspects of film language such as different animation techniques, the emotional impact on young audiences or topics like responsible citizenship.

Here is an abstract of the ten workshops from nine countries.

Participants will be welcomed on June 30 in the afternoon, kicking off the event with a
Cinemini Europe presentation. All workshop sessions will take place on 1 & 2 July.

Beyond the Multiplex: Audiences for Specialised Film in English Regions

‘Beyond the Multiplex’ was a four-year research project (conducted between 2017 and 2021), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK which sought to develop an understanding how a wider range of audiences might be enabled to participate in a more diverse film culture. Through a partnership with the British Film Institute (BFI)’s Film Audience Network (FAN) and regional Film Hubs the project aimed to directly impact efforts in improving regional audience figures, widening film choice, and enhancing the cultural benefits of specialised film.

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The need for a new study: A profile of current and future audiovisual audience

Still relevant Film audience research commissioned by the European Commission took place in 2013 including 10 European countries (Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Spain and United Kingdom). The research was based on an online survey of 4,608 Europeans aged 4-50 and among its findings, a pan-European profile of film viewer was defined and described in ten segmented groups.
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Children’s Films can mean comfort, relief, and hope

Escalating conflict in Ukraine poses an immediate and growing threat to the lives and well-being of the country’s 7.5 million children. Humanitarian needs are multiplying – and spreading by the hour. Children have been killed. Children have been wounded. They are being profoundly traumatized by the violence all around them. Hundreds of thousands of people are on the move, and family members are becoming separated from their loved ones.
Unicef

ECFA as an ambassador of children’s needs is dismayed and shocked by what is happening in Ukraine. We condemn the fact that the Russian government considers war to be a legitimate means to enforce its interests against Ukraine, a sovereign country. War was and is never a legitimate means – there are only losers. Especially the children.
ECFA is committed to quality children’s films. In these times they can mean comfort, relief, and hope. We ask our members and other organisations to offer film screenings to refugees from Ukraine.

New Horizons Association in Poland is right now preparing a VOD platform with films for kids with Ukrainian voice over.
Get in touch with them – be supportive – follow their example.

dlaukrainy@nowehoryzonty.pl

Securing the best Media choices for young people across all platforms

The Children’s Media Foundation is a UK based non profit organization concerned with securing the best media choices for young people across all platforms. The foundation was launched in 2011, bringing together academic researchers, the children’s content industry, regulators, and politicians in numerous different ways.

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Inspiring Tools for Evaluation and Measuring Impact

How often do we measure and evaluate the effect of our work on our audiences and do we know how to structure an appropriate methodology and include all important aspects in the process? When implementing audience development plans, evaluation and impact activities are usually the weak points of most cultural organizations. That’s why we decided to share two inspiring examples and supporting tools with you:

Evaluation principles, Center for Cultural Value (UK)

These principles are a collaboratively-produced articulation of values that cultural evaluators, organisations, practitioners and funders agree should guide evaluation. A Work-Group defined 12 principles under 4 headings: beneficial, robust, people-centered and connected. Each principle is connected to, and enables, the others. The publication also provides examples of each principle in practice.

Evaluation Principles overview:

beneficial – committed to learning and/or change, ethical, applicable
robust – rigorous, open-minded, proportionate
people-centered – empathetic, many-voiced, socially-engaged
connected – transparent, aware, shared

Center for Cultural Value is a national research center based at the University of Leeds. Their core partners are The Audience Agency, The University of Liverpool, The University of Sheffield and Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. Center is funded by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council, Arts Council England and Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Europeana Impact playbook, Europeana Foundation

The Europeana Impact Playbook is a step by step approach in 4 phases to help you design, measure and narrate your impact. Some of the resources developed are very useful and can be downloaded in pdf: empathy map (deeper insight into your stakeholders), change and build pathway (method for connected the activities and outputs with outcomes experienced by the stakeholders, to document them and identifies associated measurements), strategic perspectives (and its measurements), data collection workshop sheet, narrative builder canvas, mapping your stakeholders, dissemination plan worksheet.

Europeana empowers cultural heritage institutions to connect with existing and new audiences online, developing expertise, tools and policies to embrace digital change and encourage partnerships that foster innovation.

The Europeana website provides access to 58 million digital objects from 4,000 institutions around Europe – books, music, artworks and more – with sophisticated search and filter tools, and many themed collections, exhibitions, galleries and blogs. They work to share and promote this heritage so that it can be used and enjoyed by educators and researchers, creatives and culture lovers across the world.

Going Green

Just like for diversity and inclusion, environmental sustainability in our sector is not just on-screen (the stories we choose to tell) but also off-screen. Green practices can be integrated in the workflow not only of any film production, but also in the organisation of festivals.

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Diversity and Inclusion

Cinema, television and VOD industries play a crucial role in increasing diversity and promoting inclusion, but we’ve got still a long way to go. The IRIS Plus report Diversity and inclusion in the European audiovisual sector (2021) is a valuable and up-to-date source for getting a sense of the current situation in these fields in Europe.

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