The international student film festival Festimaj was introduced to the LFNY community in the fall by Primary computer teacher Sébastien Freland. M. Freland who also worked with Emmanuel Rouy, Sébastien Tomasini et Mireille Miller and the fourth- and fifth-grade students in the extracurricular Primary club “C’est pas magique, c’est scientifique“ to create a short documentary on the smoking manholes of New York City. Although it was only their first film created together, the documentary is being featured in the Festimaj competition!
You can read all about their filmmaking experience here and watch the final cut below:
On May 29th, Festimaj, “the biggest movie theatre in the world”, had its grand opening at Lycée Français de New York. The month-long Festimaj was created in 2004 by Gilles Lemounaud, filmmaker and artistic director at @rtiste Audiovisual Production Company, and Anne-Claude Lumet, author and producer, in order to unite students from all over the world through film.
Festimaj is open to young filmmakers from ages four to 30, who produce their films in cinema workshops at schools, cultural centers, or independently. The selected films from each respective category (primary school (four to ten years old); secondary school (11-15 years old); high-school (15-18 years old); university (18-30 years old) are currently being shown in all participating educational and cultural institutions around the world.
From May 28th to June 28th, fifteen classes at LFNY from first to fifth grades (approximately 320 students) are participating in the festival by watching and judging the 19 films in the primary school category this year. The films span four categories: fiction, documentary, clip, and animated.
Making time for the movie screenings is left to the teacher, who schedules them at the times that they best see fit throughout the month. In Blandine Du Sordet’s CM2 B class, students watch a few entries every other day before lunch. On my visit to Mme Du Sordet’s class, students watched a particularly charming and catchy four-minute video clip entitled “La chanson des voyelles” by students from Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni in French Guiana. After it ended, Mme. Du Sordet gave the students a moment to complete their ballot by assigning a score of one to five for each film. Once the voting was complete, she asked students why they rated the film as they did. Students respectfully took turns sharing their opinions and making insightful critiques on the lighting techniques used, quality of the music/songs, and even the quality of the acting! “The students love to watch, rank, and comment on the films. The experience is teaching them how to present and support their arguments”, explained Mme. Du Sordet.
At the end of the month, the six movies in each category that receive the most votes will be presented to the jury for review. After a closed-door meeting, the jury will award two or three films in each category to be announced during the closing celebration on the evening of June 28th.
About the Author :
Janelle Charles is Director of Admissions and Enrollment. She holds an MA in French Linguistics & Pedagogy from Middlebury College. She was a Teaching Fellow in NYC public schools and was previously a French and Spanish teacher at Greenwich Country Day, then Assistant Director of Admissions. She joined the Lycée in 2021.