France wants young Americans to fall in love with French cinema
Reaching out to younger audiences for French films has been one of the primary goals of UniFrance's activities in the USA for some years now. A special program of film screenings in schools was thus launched in several cities across America with a twofold approach: firstly, UniFrance organizes free screenings for schoolchildren at primary and secondary level in New York in collaboration with local partners, and, secondly, encourages and supports the inclusion of French films in educative activities undertaken by organizations across the United States.
In partnership with the Young French Cinema program (an initiative of UniFrance and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy), the Alliance Française in New York (FIAF) organized a screening of Stéphane de Freitas's film Speak Up on October 24, 2018. 300 senior high school students attended the screening (from ten schools in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Upstate NY, and New Jersey). The screening was followed by a discussion with Hélène Godec and Andrew Clark, teachers at Fordham University who are the initiators of the annual Eloquence Competition ("Battle of Words in French") held in association with the NYU and Columbia University. They were accompanied by the winner of the most recent competition, and invited school students up to the stage to take part in mini-exercises in public speaking.
In San Francisco, UniFrance has been working since 2017 with the San Francisco Film Society and the Novelcine association to organize bi-annual film screenings for schoolchildren as part of the educational activities of the SFFS. Following screenings of Polina and Speak Up, Rachid Hami's film Orchestra Class was shown to secondary school students in the Bay Area. The director was present to join in discussions with the students following screenings held on November 7 and 8 at the Vogue Cinema and the SF MoMA. Rachid Hami also visited a high school and a Community College in Oakland and East Bay (two of the city's underprivileged neighborhoods) to meet with students who had watched the film at their schools.
At New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center, two screenings for school children were held of A Polar Year, which was selected at Sundance 2018, organized by UniFrance on November 8 and 9 as part of the My First Film Fest event. 300 secondary school students came along from a range of different New York neighborhoods (Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn) to watch the film and, showing great enthusiasm, put their questions to the director Samuel Collardey.
And finally, UniFrance joined forces with the Chicago International Film Festival for the organization of a school screening of Speak Up early December 2018, at which 550 senior high school students had the chance to see the inspiring film by Stéphane de Freitas.
