The Film Society Kids program brings film into the classroom in order to bolster a future generation of filmmakers. The program promotes the making and viewing of films as well as students’ cultivation of 21st-century skills. Film Society Kids not only immerses young people in a technological art form, it also supports their literacy learning through visual storytelling.
Children screen classic and contemporary films, are provided opportunities for critical analysis, and learn to use a robust compendium of filmmaking techniques to create films of their own. Film Society Kids immerses young people in a media art form as well as supports their literacy learning through visual storytelling. Teachers are also trained in the use of filmmaking as part of their classroom curriculum.
Using the real-world challenges of making a film, discovery, inquiry, collaboration, innovation, and problem-solving become the creative tools for success.
What are the options? Film Society Kids offers a Filmmaking Program and an Animation Program, both of which are available after- school or during the school day.
Children study contemporary and classic short films, from the works of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin to award winners like Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon, before undertaking an intensive filmmaking journey during which they experience all aspects of filmmaking. They collaborate and storyboard with their classmates, rotate roles as members of a production crew, and learn about the countless choices that go into making films of their own.
Children study animation, from Eadweard Muybridge’s Horse in Motion and Segundo de Chomón’s The Electric Hotel to more contemporary examples, and then learn to plan and create their own animated stories. By moving through this visual-storytelling process, students gain a hands-on understanding of literacy, and produce animations of their own.
Film Society Kids Tool Kit: We provide all the necessary equipment, including cameras and tripods, as well as instructional worksheets and carefully chosen classic and contemporary movie screenings.
Culminating Film Festival: Children screen their completed films at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater!
The Film Society Kids program launched in 2014 in three public elementary schools on the Upper West Side of Manhattan’s Community School District 3: P.S. 191, P.S. 75, and P.S. 163, serving approximately 500 elementary-school students in year one. Over the next three years, the program will grow to serve more than 10 school communites and 1,000 public-school children citywide.
Each year, the program culminates with a festival at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater, where the children show the films they’ve created throughout the program.
To learn more about supporting Film Society Kids, contact Emily Vito, Assistant Director of Development, at evito@filmlinc.org.