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Digibyte | Publication

The schools in Europe are not using films and audiovisual material to the full

A new EU study recommends including the film literacy in school curricula, and promoting the establishment of general rules for licensing schemes, then contributing to a wider use of films and other audiovisual content in European Schools.

Film roll with word "film" written next to it

Film roll with word "film" written next to it

The study looked at the obstacles and best practices when showing films and other audiovisual content in European Schools. The study is divided into three chapters. The school chapter looks into how films are used and how film literacy fits intor the school curricula. The industry chapter looks at how films are made availbale for schools by the idustry. And finally the copyright chapter analyzes the legal framework in Europe for showing films in schools.

The main findings of the study:

  • In the schools: film literacy is not recognised as a subject, and most often film serves as an illustration of other subjects. The teaching of film literacy is often dependent on the initiative of individual teachers, who also provide the material to be shown on DVD.
  • In the film industry: licencing of films to be shown in schools is not a priority for the industry, although very good licencing schemes exist in some Member States.
  • In copyright law: EU Member States have implemented the exception for illustration in very different ways and there is a lot of legal uncertainty on the conditions in which films can be used in the context of teaching.

The study provides recommendations on how to better facilitate the use of films and other audiovisual content in European Schools. The recommendations will be used when assessing the Film literacy support scheme of Creative Europe MEDIA, and will also feed into the discussions on copyright reform.

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Films in schools study
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