the question
How can moving image help us become responsible citizens and active members of our community?
movies and the world
In this section we will explore the ways film and moving image can help us become responsible citizens and active members of our community. The film experience is designed to help us suspend disbelief, to imagine we are Luke Skywalker rescuing the Princess, or that we are the sad cowboy Woody who has just been abandoned under the bed for the shiny new Buzz Lightyear.
Films can also help bring communities together, help us understand how other people feel when we might have been wary or scared of them before. They can show us the rest of the world and they can tell us more about the community we live in. Through film, we can explore our own history and culture as well as those of other societies. Film can make us feel passionate about situations we had ignored or taken for granted; and they spur us into action, into changing the world (or at least our little part of it).
The Way We Played
It's easy to think that in order to teach citizenship using film you need to show feature-length documentaries like Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore, 2002) or Super Size Me (Morgan Spurlock, 2004). However, many children’s films deal with issues of morality and the crossing of cultures. Empathy for characters and situations in a film can be used to explore and discuss our feelings about situations that affect us directly. An animated short film about a person getting teased about their appearance such as Westi can be used to help a class think about a bullying situation that might have happened in the school recently.
Often films aimed at children, deal with issues which affect communities