EducaTIFF or how to focus on film education for children

Picture this: a full cinema house of about 300 seats, lots of laughs and jokes about how they are looking, some serious claims such as “teacher, he is teasing me!!!”. It’s Tuesday morning, the fifth day of TIFF, and at 10.00 it’s going to be screened Petr Oukropec’s In your dreams!, a movie for and about teenagers. The director is also present, and after the screening will held a masterclass with this teenagers about the wonders of the cinema. This is happening courtesy of Ramona Sarbu, who coordinates the media and literacy programme for young audiences section of the biggest film festival in Romania for five years now, being one of the stuff members of the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) that grew up and developed both personal and professional on the same time as the festival itself.

By Oana Vasiliu

We are in the middle of the festival. How is EducaTIFF going so far?

The answer is very good. We, at EducaTIFF, are those opening the festival, while the first movie screened is in our schedule, and we were fully booked – we even brought some extra seats. This has happened until now: we have some reservations in advanced from schools, but many more are showing up at cinema. Also, the program is growing: the number of teachers with whom we are in direct contact increases, a sign that we are doing things right. Just before the festival kicked off, we had 2,400 reservations in advanced for EducaTIFF, which was quite impressive. But taking into consideration the fact that many showed up at the cinema, probably we will break another record. What I’ve noticed this year is that during weekend days, a lot of adults came to see the movies, which was quite unusual while our public was made of teachers who came with the class and parents who brought their kids for the workshops.

Who is doing the movie selection for EducaTIFF?  

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I’m responsible for selecting the movies, but I also discuss it with Mihai Chirilov and his team. Some of them were submitted directly to TIFF, so the team redirected them to me if they considered that the subject was suitable for kids and teenagers. What I really wanted in the program was Long Way North, which was already doubled in Romanian language, because we invited kids with special needs to this program, so it’s way easier for them to watch a movie, and also kids who don’t know yet to read. Also, Nelly’s adventures was on the list – firstly because Tudor Giurgiu’s Libra Film will promote the movie, then because part of the film was filmed in Romania, at Sibiu, and third because is another type of story from which kids and adults have lessons to learn.

How was the world premiere of Nelly’s adventures?

It was another full house event, this time at Cinema Florin Piersic. As Tudor Giurgiu already said, it was a Champions League atmosphere while the kids were applauding every time the main character passed another test. Also, in the cinema we brought kids from disadvantaged areas from Cluj, and they really made the vibe of the movie. What is more, after Q&A, most of the kids wanted photos with the main character, so the atmosphere was quite a red-carpet one.

I saw in the local newspaper an article about EducaTIFF and the title was  “Movies we grow up with”. Which are the movies you grow up with?

I’m coming from a small city of Romania where the focus was on theatre, not cinema, so I can’t really remember what marked my adolescence existence. Also, when we were kids and teenagers, there wasn’t so many movies to watch – in cinema or at the TV. But I can answer that every year, I grow up with the movies form EducaTIFF, due to the topics we choose and the lessons learnt after it.

In 2015, EducaTIFF program met over 7,000 children and teenagers in several locations from Romania. EducaTIFF has been the first relevant programme to bring films for children and teenagers in the Romanian cinemas, while filling in the lack of lesson plans resources for Romanian teachers by providing proper educational materials based on these films.