3RD YEAR

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2024 from A-FilmTeensFest!

Here's to a bright future and many more creative years ahead!

Since I only signed up to watch the films with my class (16 students) and in the end most of the classes of our school (103 students and several teachers) watched the films, I consider it a great success. We just talked about it amongst the teachers in the corridor during snack time and it was already a chain reaction, some couldn't resist and watched in their classes with the students too :-). They were logging in with my details, hopefully not angry with us, which is why we didn't end up giving external access to the pupils either, so as to keep an eye on the ages and appropriate topics. We only played it in class. It was great, thank you, and we're very much cheering on all the filmmakers and creators of this project. Amazing what kids can create! Next year the whole school will be watching, we've already put it in the plan (as project days) for next school year!!! A wide range of topics. Appropriately prepared worksheets. Pupils lively discussion and critical evaluation, surprised that the films were made by pupils. Some of the topics were closer to them. They watched most of the film with excitement and attention. We devoted more time to the films and their evaluation than we had originally intended - responding to pupils' needs, we discussed and compared their impressions for as long as it was necessary - There were also films that we explained more fully to pupils (The Gift, The Hole, Walking Armored), e.g. the film Newly Placed - they did not understand. The world of ones and zeros - the teacher felt that the films would be more suited to secondary school, it was challenging. Too bad we didn't know ahead of time how long it would take to watch the entire block to figure out how many class periods it would take to do so (including time for assessment). We just opened some of the streams to get an idea of what it would be about, so we didn't even evaluate some of the films. Next time we will know how it goes :-). Recommendation: indicate the duration of the film sections.

Elementary and Pre-school, Znojmo region

They worked very well together, the teacher got 5 teen judges, she willingly transcribed their evaluations of the films, and when the kids couldn't make it she sent us an evaluation of the festival before we even contacted her: We enjoyed your festival in several subjects as much as we could, and the recommended pre-selection you sent helped me in my citizenship. Of course, I must also admit that my enthusiasm for the idea of the festival was sometimes demotivated by the lukewarm response of some classes (children in the second grade are deformed by the easy entertaining consumption of tic-tac-toe and youtube videos and often did not even want to tune in to a different aesthetic, let alone search for an idea) - this is still the everyday "mass" reality of elementary school. But then there are the classes with more intimate groups where it suddenly flows and you feel good, and then the communication with individual thoughtful and sensitive kids who might come up at the end of the class and say - I'd like to make a documentary about horses and horsemanship by next year. ..So in the end, as always, we try to inspire and throw seeds that will hopefully fall on fertile ground somewhere and awaken creativity...I will definitely be looking out for next year's event again, it's a great event.


Elementary school, Zlín

Very practical, visually very nice, easy to approach, rich themes; the only problem at the beginning with access.

(A-Filmteensfest response: we had a problem with the payment gateway at the beginning, so we decided to allow all viewers free access to films in 2023)

School psychologist, high school, Prague, Czech Republic

Very nice event. The films in which children from higher grades participated were an inspiration and motivating. Kids now want to make movies themselves. We also used films in teaching, natural history, etc. We had some technical problems with the access password.
(A-Filmteensfest response: we know about it and we will adjust and simplify the registration and login method for the upcoming year)

Elementary school, Liberec Region, Czech Republic

Thank you for access to the film festival. I am looking forward not only to interesting children's creations (I saw examples of creations on the website - they are beautiful), but also to the fact that it will definitely affect our children in the orphanage in some way. Several children already have creative ambitions for filming - again a wonderful opportunity to use their free time in a creative, purposeful and meaningful way. Thank you so much for these children!!!

Director, children's home, Liberec Region, Czech Republic

Film blocks on the environment and bullying sparked heated discussions among the pupils; The movie "Pirates" (about friends with a radio station) was useful for its English. The children had a lot of fun with it all, broadened their horizons. Great choice of topics, enrichment of pupils (also discovering knowledge - what they know). We recommend better tuning the promotion to schools.
(A-Filmteensfest response: We are always looking for new ways to let other schools and audiences know about us.)

Teacher, elementary school, Ústí nad Labem Region, Czech Republic

There are twenty children in my group who will be happy to watch festival films, gain experience, new ideas and motivation for further activities. As far as possible, we will involve the whole school in watching festival films. Thank you!

Media club teacher, elementary school, Moravian-Silesian Region, Czech Republic

We personally participated in the streamed Fake News workshop that A-FilmTeensFest organized at our school. It was a very successful event, from which the children took away a lot of useful information. Their reactions after the workshop were only positive. They enjoyed the amount of games, interactive activities and group work. It was our first experience with the festival, and a positive one.

Elementary school, Prague, Czech Republic

The festival is interesting, unfortunately we didn't make enough use of it due to the severe covid situation at school. Having the films available for a longer time would help us - a month, so that it could be better planned with the curriculum (Reaction of A-Filmteensfest: in 2023 the festival will last about 5 weeks for this very reason!)

Elementary school, South Bohemia Region, Czech Republic

We watched blocks of films for the little ones, then blocks about bullying, relationships and nature. We appreciated the online access and interesting topics supplementing our curriculum

Deputy Director, elementary and pre-school, Liberec Region, Czech Republic

The opportunity to participate in an interesting online festival helped us a lot during lockdown. The flexibility of when to view and the division into categories (by age probably more than by topic) worked well for us.

Elementary school, Prague, Czech Republic