Cinema in Schools Creativity Workshops

“La Grotta dei Piccoli – Creativity Workshops in Schools” is a project organized by La Guarimba Cultural Organization and funded by the call for proposals “Cinema and Images for Schools,” sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education in Italy.

The project is built on a series of workshops addressed to students aged 11 to 13 with the aim of bringing the new generations closer to the art of storytelling through animated cinema, involving them in days of workshops and screenings up to the making of short films.

The main idea of the educational project is to offer the students involved a learning platform, with the aim of developing their creativity, providing the necessary tools to move and understand the world of cultural production.

Film language education is conceived as a chance to learn about and appreciate content that is difficult to access, chosen both for its quality and because it stimulates reflection on important issues.

Through methods of non-formal education, we aim to create an interest in this art form, making young people participants in the creative process behind a film production.

THE HISTORY OF THE PROJECT

The initiative was the winner of the Cinema and Images For Schools call for proposals in 2019 and 2020, successfully taking place in the Amantea area both in presence and in distance learning mode.

We organized animation workshops and screenings in the middle schools of Campora S. Giovanni, Aiello and Cleto in the province of Cosenza, where the students learned and practiced the processes of making an animated video: ideation and writing of the story, creation of the characters (drawn and with plasticine), filming, editing, and audio recording, allowing the participants to live a unique educational experience and to see their works projected. We immediately sensed the potential of the project, which was greatly appreciated by both students and teachers.

In 2022, after the forced break from Covid, we participated again in the call for proposals, winning it and expanding our reach to involve 7 schools from all 5 provinces of Calabria.

During the project, we carried out a study to analyze the impact these workshops had on the educational journey of adolescents in Calabria.

Here you can read the report of the 2023 edition and the result of the analysis.

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