One of the requirements for gaining European Parliament Ambassador School (EPAS) accreditation is to put on one or more events to expose your school/college community to the diversity of culture with the European Union. One way you might choose to do this is by screening a European film or short. Picking something high quality, interesting and thought-provoking is made easy by the LUX Prize, but we’ve listed some other sources below too.
How to set up your film event
Book a date and location for your screening
You’ll need enough time to set up and advertise your event and a space with a good screen, speakers and enough seats for everyone you want to come. You might use the school hall, a class room, a drama studio or similar. Whose permission do you need?
Choose your film
How long do you have? There are films below from just a few minutes to a few hours long. Make sure you choose something that fits your time slot.
What language is it in? There are lots of European films in English, but maybe you want to use a language your school teaches, or one you’re less familiar with. It’s probably a good idea to check that there are English subtitles.
What is it about? Is it something that you find interesting? That’s a good indication of whether other people in your school/college will too. Try to make it something thought-provoking; a film’s always more enjoyable when it leaves you with something to talk about.
Is it appropriate for your audience? You should check with a member of staff that the film you want to show is ok for the age-group you want to show it to.
Advertise your event
This should just been an event for people in your school/college community, so advertising can be with posters, in school newsletters and by word of mouth. You can’t charge anyone for coming to these screenings (that would be illegal).
Tell us (and others) about it
Take some photos at your event, or a short video of people saying what they thought of the film(s). Post them on your school website, newsletter or social media. Log in to your dashboard and add a link to where we can see your photos and videos.
LUX Prize
The LUX Prize – European Audience Film Award – is a joint project of the European Parliament and the European Film Academy.
[The LUX Prize] continues building bridges across Europe, as one of the LUX Prize’s objectives, by shedding light on films that go to the heart of the European public debate.
The award aims at strengthening ties between politics and citizens, by inviting European audiences to become active protagonists by voting for their favourite films.
You can see all the current and previous nominees of the LUX Prize here.
Select ‘United Kingdom’ in ‘Search by country’ to see only films that are available on UK streaming services.
Click the film’s poster image to get links to the streaming services.
In the Editions page of the LUX Prize’s website you can browse all the nominated films from each year (edition). You can easily see where the film comes from and how long it is. You can click ‘See more’ to read a synopsis of each one. There is also a catalogue of all nominated films from 2007 to 2019 if you prefer to flick through quick synopses.
Wikipedia has a full list of all the nominated films since 2007, which lists the original language(s) of each film.
YAA
The Young Audience Award (YAA) also allows audiences across Europe to decide on their favourite European films, but in this case the audiences are made up solely of young people. The films they choose from and select should be appropriate for a wider range of students in your school. The difficulty is that most are not available on UK streaming services. You can if which ones are available, if any, here.
European Film Awards Shorts
If you don’t have time for a feature length film, a European short film could work well for you. A great source of these is the European Film Awards. You can find a full list of all nominated short films since 1998 on Wikipedia. As short films don’t get a full cinema release they can be tricky to find, but some are released for free on YouTube and Vimeo, so search for the title and see what you can find.
Festhome TV
Festhome TV isn’t related to the European Film Academy, but is a great place to find European language films that you can stream very cheaply. These are all films submitted to film festivals across the world, so you’ll find films of all lengths, subjects and languages. You can quickly see the length and language of each film and a quick synopsis if you hover over the film’s image. You can watch a preview and see what ages the film is suitable for if you click into the film.
N.B.
The UK Government pays for all English state schools to have a licence to legally show films for free to their students; most other schools/colleges in the UK are members of bodies that allow them to do the same. Showing films publicly without these proper licences is illegal.