Ventana Cinéfila
The educational project Ventana Cinéfila will be holding its fifth edition from October 15th to November 30th, 2024
This educational project, unprecedented within the European festival scene, brings together the Valladolid, Malaga, Seville, Huelva and Sitges film competitions through ProFestivales21
Schools will be able to register for this year's edition, which as a new feature will include a presentation of each film by each festival's programmers, starting on September 16th.
The Valladolid International Film Festival, the Sitges - International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia, the Seville European Film Festival, the Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival and the Malaga Film Festival, united under the Profestivales21 umbrella, will be launching the fifth edition of the Ventana Cinéfila project, a free online film channel on the FILMIN platform designed for schools that aims to promote film education for future viewers, and which will be available on the platform this year from October 15th to November 30th.
This unique project, unprecedented within the European festival scene, brings together five of the most important film festivals in our country for the purpose of expanding the social perspective and aesthetic awareness of young people through a lineup of films organized and agreed upon by each festival's respective programming teams, featuring a selection of recently produced international films that prioritize their quality and thematic and aesthetic balance, in keeping with the different age groups from the various scholastic levels.
This year, Ventana Cinéfila's lineup, to be announced in September, will offer seven feature films and two short film programs by contemporary international auteurs, which address issues that appeal to the present reality of any student from different perspectives and narrative proposals, thereby promoting an active and cross-cutting approach to a wide range of subjects. This year, as a new feature, the screenings will include a presentation by the programmers in charge of the film selection, who will offer students certain guidelines for viewing the films and will highlight the value of each of them.
Schools in Castilla León, Andalusia and Catalonia will be able to access these contents upon registration, which can be done through each festival's respective website starting September 16th.
Teaching Guides
Each interested school will also receive a complete teaching guide for each film, material developed by Drac Màgic, a social initiative cooperative founded in 1971, dedicated to the study and dissemination of audiovisual culture, and one of whose most outstanding projects is the Pack Màgic distribution company, specializing in children's films. These guides are designed to encourage curiosity regarding each film and to promote a taste for cinema starting at an early age.
Teachers will be able to use these teaching guides to work with students and enrich classroom discussions both before and after the viewing, as well as to work in depth and cross-curricularly on subjects including history, natural sciences, languages or art, addressing the present reality of any student by means of new perspectives and narrative approaches.
This initiative, with the participation of primary, secondary and high school students, was launched in 2020 by the Valladolid International Film Festival (Seminci) and the Seville Film Festival, now joined by the Huelva, Malaga and Sitges festivals under the Profestivales21 Brand. Over its first four editions, Ventana Cinéfila programmed more than 32 feature films and 43 short films -grouped into different lineups for each age range-, both animated and live-action, always addressing very diverse and topical social issues, ranging from sexual and family diversity to the influence of social media, and including migrations and social integration, climate emergency, body acceptance, gender violence or artistic creation.
Last year, this groundbreaking program reached 366,938 viewers and attracted the participation of more than a thousand teachers from Castilla y León, Andalusia, and Catalonia between September 13th and November 29th, 2023.