Back in March, schools and cinemas across various European countries were forced to close. Lecturers found themselves having to find new ways of teaching their students, in the audiovisual field as well as all the others. Going forward, the industry will need to identify new methods to ensure film and audiovisual promotion in all its forms successfully reaches its audience, which has grown accustomed to accessing audiovisual content over the internet in recent months.

Given that the return to normality looks set to be a long and uncertain journey, exploring some of the key questions concerning audiovisual education seems a crucial part of the process: what will a “new” educational approach, which takes the current situation into account, look like? Is “remote learning” the answer? How will festivals and cinemas be involved? What is currently on offer and what could be proposed in the future? And, last but not least, what new form would international cooperation take in a global context of uncertainty and change?

Attempts will be made to answer these questions between 22 October and 5 November, when the Milan Piccolo Grande Cinema-Cineteca Festival will host an international conference devoted to The Film Corner, an international project dating back to 2017 and boasting institutions from 6 European countries among its ranks. Funded by the Creative Europe programme and supported in Italy by MIUR and MIBACT, the project is looking to create an interactive, online platform for film education.

The conference will unfold online and in English, consisting of multiple panel discussions and welcoming over 20 speakers from 15 countries, comprising representatives of transnational organisations such as EFADs - the European Film Agency Directors Association, as well as some of the biggest international associations in the field of film education, including the Danish Film Institute (Denmark), Vision Kino (Germany), the British Film Institute (UK) and the Institut Français (France).

European Commission representative Maria Silvia Gatta will also make an appearance, delivering a presentation on the EC’s plans for the future of film education, and an Italian day is likewise on the agenda, opening with an institutional talk by MiBACT’s Directorate-General for all things Film and Audiovisual.

That’s it for the programme, which will be updated on the project’s Facebook and Instagram pages, as well as on the Discord platform.