Film Education: Memory and Heritage

Film education in the digital age should be based on three closely-related and complementary fundamentals: to see, to analyze and to make films with young people; three basics that must interact and support each other. The concept of creative analysis could be the glue the binds this subject together, making it coherent and efficient for educational purposes. If cinema is an art, it is above all the art of memory, both individual and collective. This article suggests that we can join the pedagogy of film education to the citizen’s desire to perpetuate memory and preserve cultural heritage. The author describes various types of films to prove this hypothesis, and at the same time indicates the economic and cultural dimension of the media. The essay starts with an approach to film education in the digital age. Later, it analyzes certain aspects of films of memory, referring specifically to the typology of standpoints of film-makers and the treatment of their sources. Lastly, there is a reflection on the convergence of the concept of creative analysis, promoted by film education, and the production of videos by young people dedicated to the individual or collective memory. This convergence matches European Union proposals concerning the production and creation of audiovisual media from this viewpoint.