FILM EDUCATION IN A MIGRATION SOCIETY
The Department of Film Education and Outreach at the DFF actively works to make social diversity visible in its own work and throughout the institution. To achieve this, the team questions existing structures and offerings at the DFF, engages in dialog with experts to deepen its knowledge, and develops new projects.
This page provides an overview of the department’s projects and collects texts, interviews and additional resources on the topics of film, migration and interculture.
Germany is an immigrant country, and Frankfurt is considered super-diverse: 72% of children under the age of seven in our urban society have a family background of migration. However, this diversity is not yet reflected in cultural institutions. The DFF and the Department of Film Education and Outreach also have a long way to go. Among their tasks are working towards an anti-discrimination stance, questioning entrenched structures, and diversifying the team and audience.
In 2015, the film education department founded the film club “Blickwechsel Jetzt” (“Perspective Change Now”). To address power imbalances, the DFF organized the conference “Film, Flight and Interculture” in 2016, which led to guidelines and projects for intercultural film education.
In 2019, the DFF, with support from the Kulturstiftung des Bundes, appointed Aida Ben Achour as Outreach Manager and Rabih El-Khoury as Diversity Manager. Since summer 2023, Andrea Hartmann and Valentine Jerke have continued this work.
Despite the pandemic, the intercultural project “Our DFF,” led by Barbara Dierksen, was successfully carried out in 2021.
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Specialized texts and publications often shed light on current discourses, but they also provide an opportunity for critical reflection on one’s own project work. Here is a selection of publications available, which emerge in the course of our educational and outreach projects.
Blickwechsel Migration – Considerations for an Anti-Racist Film Mediation
Aurora Rodonò examines intercultural film education through the lens of critical migration studies, contributing perspectives that address discrimination, racism, and the migrant experience to the ongoing discourse.
A decade in movement in contemporary Arab Cinema (long version)
Rabih El-Khoury offers a comprehensive look at the state of modern Arab cinema, with particular emphasis on the circumstances of production and reception within the Arabic-speaking world. He also discusses the negative and positive effects of the Arab Spring on Arab cinema and its key figures. An abridged version of this text has already been made available as part of the Intercultural Film Education project.
Our DFF – Creating New Spaces
The publication “Our DFF: Creating New Spaces” contains texts and photos of the participants in the project of the same name, as well as helpful reports from the project team about the intercultural encounter format.
Interviews
Different perspectives are brought into the conversation, creating an opportunity for a diverse exchange of ideas. As a result, discussions, debates, and similar formats related to the field of film education and outreach are regularly held. A number of these discussions are available here.
Reading list
As part of our exploration of diversity perspectives and in the course of our project work over the past years, the Film Education and Outreach Department has compiled a list of literature. It can serve as a starting point to engage with the topics of film, migration, and interculturalism through academic texts or working materials, or to further deepen one’s individual knowledge in these areas.
