“The Future of Europe – Greece and Germany” : An international film project Erasmus Project

Project Title

“The Future of Europe – Greece and Germany” : An international film project

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 : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The Max-Ernst-Gymnasium (Municipal Grammar School in the town of Bruehl) and the 4th Junior High School of Iraklion (Crete, Greece) participated in an Erasmus+ project in order to offer an innovative and activity-orientated project in an international context. Two levels were applied: a methodological level involving the planning, making and publishing of a film and a content-related level on the basis of the topic “The future of Europe – Greece and Germany: An international film project”.
Within the project, students from Greece and Germany were given the oppurtunity to acquire technical skills (filming, cutting) as well as communicative skills (English as lingua franca). Moreover, they improved their project management skills within the given task, as group work was central to the learning environment. It cannot be underestimated that the students’ achievements have highly contributed to the students’ self-awareness, have enhanced their attitude towards their work results (outcome) in context of the school environment and the overall project has been highly successful to help students gain self-dependency and maturity in their teenage years.
With respect to the content-related level of film-making, the project increased the students’ and teachers’ awareness towards issues and benefits of the European Union seen from different perspectives. It has to be mentioned that everybody having partaken in the project improved their intercultural competences. Workshops which were planned and conducted with an external partner (CULTRA) were highly successful. CULTRA is a youth centre in Bruehl offering expertise in film making etc.. Their given technical support made the filming and cutting feasable and furthermore helped to widen students’ and teachers’ technical skills. Cooperation with CULTRA on the methodological level was highly successful. With regard to content, coordination could have been more intense with CULTRA. However, the experiences greatly help to improve further future upcoming projects.
The project included two transnational meetings between teachers and coordinator (planning and evaluation/dissemination) and two transnational learning events (one in Greece, one in Germany). The first transnational meeting took place in September in Bruehl and served planning, whereas the second meeting in Heraklion was used for dissemination and evaluation. The learning activities took place in January/February and March. In Germany, the main focus lay on the film workshops, which consisted of a team working with stop motion, one group preparing a documentary, one group dealing with a fictional film and two creative film workshops dealing with rap songs and dance. In Greece, the focus lay on cultural and historical topics. Moreover, interviews adding to the films where also recored there. Within the exchanges, intercultural competences on the students’ sides were increased by face-to-face contact, but also through digital communication between the exchanges.
The participating students in Germany were part of a bilingual course in social sciences (history / geography). The four lessons/week are a compulsory optional subject which was obligatory in the students’ timetable and thus ensured feasability. Greek students joined the project as an extracurricular activity. All students were aged 14-15. Within the planning process in which students and parents were actively involved, the students’ interests in the project induced changes regarding the number of students taking part in the actual learning actitivities. Thus, with additional financial support from the parents’ sides it was possible to include a greater number of students in the exchange. 20 Greek students and 22 German who showed high interest and were dedicated to put over-average work into the project thus took part. Further students who did not take part in the actual exchange were involved in the project in their home countries and directly benefited from the project, because they were involved in scriptwriting and cutting etc.. The film was presented to the participating schools as well as the local communities.
The project serves as a role model for future film projects. A further KA 2 project has been applied for due to the positive experiences of this project. Cooperation will be expanded and enhanced in case the project will be accepted.
Furthermore, the project was central in enforcing the internationalisation of the Max-Ernst- Gymnasium and the Greek 4th Junior High School of Heraklion by face-to-face and digital cooperation.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 24370 Eur

Project Coordinator

Max Ernst Gymnasium der Stadt Bruehl & Country: DE

Project Partners

• 4th Secondary School Iraklion Crete