future.film.education – Online Teaching and Diversity in European Film Schools Erasmus Project

Project Title

future.film.education – Online Teaching and Diversity in European Film Schools

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Gender equality / equal opportunities; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The project future.film.education brings together three film schools from Cologne, Budapest, and Lisbon working on inventive audiovisual practices of remote teaching and learning.
The joint project of the ifs internationale filmschule köln, the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME) Budapest, and COFAC/Universidade Lusófona Lisbon seeks to improve the quality and capacity of online teaching in European film schools while promoting diversity in film and media as a response to the educational and social challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In order to achieve this overall objective, the project identifies and reduces the barriers, which hinder groups of students from accessing quality online higher education. In addition, the project promotes diversity in film and media through the adoption of a diversity curriculum in film schools. The project offers best practices guidelines for creating inventive, inclusive and supportive learning arrangements for students, which sustain film schools’ experimental and practice-based approaches to learning. Fostering educational justice through diversity-aware pedagogies, the project advances gender equity and diversity in film and media production through the implementation of a diversity curriculum. Each partner brings considerable expertise in the creation of audiovisual media and profound knowledge in artistic practice-based teaching. The conviction of the cultural power of film and media for social change and the passion for exploring new technologies drive their cooperation.

The project’s interlinked activities move from self-assessment and the design of educational materials to the open source publication of toolkits, and the dissemination of knowledge by means of a MOOC. The theoretical framework of the project draws on concepts from Gender and Queer Studies, Dis/ability Studies, Constructivist Pedagogy, and Artistic Research, while pursuing the problem-based investigation of creative practices and/as learning processes. All intellectual outcomes and reflections on the collaborative work that can serve as best practice guidelines are published as free online resources.

The first steps of the project are the development of a methodology guide for self-assessment (for evaluating the particular needs and opportunities of teaching practice-based courses online) and a literature review on resources for online teaching film and media courses (carried out by a research group at ifs). Drawing on the insights from the self-assessment and the research the ifs develops a toolkit for online teaching and blended learning at film schools. The ifs facilitates a trial run of online teaching methods from the toolkit for lecturers from all three film schools. A complementary research group at MOME accomplishes a literature review, which maps best practices of curricula on diversity and inclusion from film and media study programs and surveys strategies on teaching and practicing diversity within film schools, which can be transferred to contemporary production cultures, too. Based on their investigation the research group at MOME issues guidelines for including a “Diversity in Film and Media” curriculum in existing study programs. This information on best practices is published as the “Diversity in Film and Media Toolkit.” Next, an online pilot course on “Diversity in Film and Media” is designed jointly by the two research groups and tested in an online training program for students of the participating HEIs. The pilot course will then be evaluated, re-designed and published as a “Diversity in Film and Media” curriculum. Finally, this curriculum is adapted for a “Diversity in Film and Media”-MOOC, which will be available online as a free resource

The project’s broader objective is to create toolkits and a MOOC, which can be used by European film and art schools to address gender (in-)equity in education, to develop strategies for introducing diversity and inclusion as learning outcomes of the study programs and so altogether advocate diversity as a key concept in higher education and the arts.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 204510 Eur

Project Coordinator

ifs internationale filmschule köln gmbh & Country: DE

Project Partners

• MOHOLY-NAGY MUVESZETI EGYETEM
• COFAC COOPERATIVA DE FORMACAO E ANIMACAO CULTURAL CRL