SCREENVILLE: Children Ciné-Clubs (Beeban Kidron)

15 juin 2012

Children Ciné-Clubs (Beeban Kidron)

Beeban Kidron: The shared wonder of film

May 2012 TED Salon London 13'13"

Movies have the power to create a shared narrative experience and to shape memories and worldviews. British film director Beeban Kidron invokes iconic film scenes -- from Miracle in Milan to Boyz n the Hood -- as she shows how her group FILMCLUB shares great films with kids.

Beeban Kidron is a British filmmaker who successfully navigates between pop culture and society’s darkest underworlds. Kidron is best known for directing Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004) and the Bafta-winning miniseries Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1989), adapted from Jeannette Winterson’s novel of the same name. She is also the director of To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995) and Antonia and Jane (1991), as well as two documentaries on prostitution: Hookers, Hustlers, Pimps and their Johns (1993) and Sex, Death and the Gods (2011), a film about “devadasi,” or Indian “sacred prostitutes.”
In 2006 Kidron, with journalist and film critic Lindsay Mackie, founded FILMCLUB, an educational charity aimed at transforming the lives of young people through film. Through FILMCLUB, schools can screen films at no cost, and afterwards students discuss and review the films. Each week the charity reaches 220,000 children, in over 7,000 clubs.

FILMCLUB : Weekly Film Screenings in schools

Participatory choice of the film title from the vast annals of cinema history
Curated and contextualized film presentation
Uninterrupted, communal film screening
Post-screening discussions, opening up on larger societal debates
Meeting with filmmakers, film crew, actors, screenwriters, editors, casting directors, stun managers, composers, conductors
Film-related activities, school project, workshop
Review writing, review of the week contest

Films cited :