Film education as a multiplicity of practices: A media-ecological perspective

Abstract

This paper explores a media-ecological perspective on film-education practice. Drawing from their own experiences of teaching film (at the Austrian Film Museum and the KurzFilmSchule, Hamburg) the authors challenge monolithic theories of film education, suggesting instead that film education practices are shaped by context, and are relational to the spaces and institutions in which they take place. While the paper takes as its core point of departure Alain Bergala's The Cinema Hypothesis, its intention is to shift the way we look at and reflect on film education from one text towards a multiplicity of practices. Finally, the essay considers the extent to which each of these regional theorizations are bound to their specific conditions of practice and the extent to which they still carry within them a shared understanding of the aims of film education.