The This is England short-film festival in Rouen has a specific programme of short films for lycée classes. The varied selection this year includes odes to two very different British landscapes, family relations, mindfulness, racism, a music video based on an historic Scottish figure and a documentary about a prosthetic leg.
If you sign up for a lycée showing, your students will see seven films ranging in length from 1m52 to 15 minutes. Four are animations, six are live-action fiction stories and one is a documentary.
You can make reservations for school groups and download the teaching packs for jeune public, collège and lycée on the schools pages.
The lycée teaching pack provides images to work on anticipation about the films, their titles and possible contents, as well as suggestions for each film of themes and vocabulary.
A number of the films in this year's selection are comedies:
A Mind Full: 9m35
The title plays on the irony of a man who has a very busy mind trying to teach calm and mindfulness.
Headache: 5m35
Students should be able to relate to this sketch where a pharmacist refuses to believe a 23-year-old is over 16 and therefore allowed to buy painkillers for his headache. He multiplies different ploys in the hope of curing his sore head.
Tall, Dark and Handsome: 13:59
Lady Brently’s End by the same director was in last year’s lycée section. This time Sam Baron is presenting a dark comedy in about a British Indian man who starts wondering why his pregnant white girlfriend is attracted to him when he discovers that she had had several other Indian boyfriends.
Linda: 7m48
Comedian Joe Lycett has made a short about a woman called Linda who gets a job at the Post Office but spends all her time telling more and more ridiculous tall tales.
Town and Country
Two contrasting shorts portray the busyness of city life and the calm of nostalgic seaside holidays.
Brixton Bustle 4m50
This animation is full of the colour and music of the Afro-Caribbean Brixton area of London.
Wish I Were There 1m52
Another animation based around a poem in praise of childhood holidays in British seaside resorts. The title plays on a phrase commonly printed on postcards: Wish you were here.
The Bonny Moorhen: 2m42
On the lyrical theme, this beautiful stop-motion animation is a music video for a traditional Scottish folk song that makes veiled references to rebel would-be king Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Manmade: 15m
At their football coach father’s funeral, two brothers confront his ideas about what a man should be. The teaching ideas work on emotions, the expression “boys don’t cry” and a poem one of the brothers writes. You could connect poetry with Wish I Were Here and Bonny Moorhen.
The Tornado Outside: 8m15
Anna lives in a perfect house, but it is situated on the edge of a tornado. When she ventures outside, she is forced to face the chaos that she usually hides away from.
Irish, Blacks & Dogs: 8m30
An Irish immigrant to the U.K. has had a fall and is not at all happy when his medical aid is provided by a black doctor.
Fitting 10m51
The only documentary in the selection was made by Caitlin McMullan, who is an amputee, while she was having a prosthetic leg made. The film cuts between the patient’s point of view and the prosthetist’s.
This is England in a Cinema Near You
If you would like to organise a projection of one of the This is England schools programmes for your pupils, and you have a local cinema that is willing to do so, they can download a programme from Cinego for professional cinemas. If you are interested, you can email Christophe Thierry.
This is England
Rouen and throughout Normandy
12-20 November
> No to Bullying
> This is England 2022 lycée films
Tag(s) : "British culture" "Brixton" "collège" "comedy" "coming-of-age" "difference" "festival" "film" "film festival" "folk music" "integration" "London" "music video" "Normandy" "parent-children relationships" "racism" "Rouen" "Scottish history" "seaside" "short films" "teaching materials"
