Éducation à l’image is a film education program which is destined to the teachers and high school students from Bucharest and which was initiated in 2009 by the Embassy of France in Bucharest; until the present moment over 6,000 students took part in it.
Every year, the students and the teachers watch 3 or 4 films, take part in workshops or discussions with professionals from the film industry and receive materials dedicated to each of the studied films. The teachers training sessions for the school year 2016-2017 took place at the Elvira Popescu cinema, from September the 7th until the 9th. The film critics Andrei Gorzo and Ionuț Mareș held the training sessions for the feature films An Unforgettable Summer (directed by Lucian Pintilie, Romania-France, 1994) and Oslo, August 31st, (directed by Joachim Trier, Norway, 2011). Tudor Jurgiu spoke with the teachers that were present about the third film that was suggested this year, The Young Girls of Rochefort (directed by Jacques Demy, France, 1967).
The AaRC team was present at the training session held by Andrei Gorzo for An Unforgettable Summer. Yvonne Irimescu, the project coordinator told us about the selection criteria for the films chosen for the Éducation à l’image, about the characteristics of this program in the context of other similar initiatives, but also about their importance.
“Many people get in touch with the films from a very early age and, at their turn, not only consume but produce complex multimedia texts. The history of the 20th century and our access to it cannot be conceived without this film and mass-media archive. Acquiring some reading, analyzing and interpreting abilities is indispensable”, Andrei Gorzo says. These films can also be discussed in the classroom, in different contexts, either because they can place a historic event in a context, or because they can be discussed at the literature class and the critic explains how a film like An Unforgettable Summer can be used by the teachers.
Cinematography: Nicolae Cara
